


Spindrift

by kyaticlikestea



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Destructive Behaviour, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Genderqueer Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Modern AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trigger Warnings, Whump, depictions of mental illness, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyaticlikestea/pseuds/kyaticlikestea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>For someone like Enjolras to lose his mind, when his mind is his greatest asset, is the cruellest punishment imaginable. If a fool were to lose their mind, Grantaire thinks, then of course it would be sad, but when a genius loses their mind, then it is sacrilege. Like a painter losing his sight, or a musician losing her hearing. Enjolras has lost the most important tool of his trade, the tallest pillar of his identity, and it is a tragedy. </i>
</p><p>While Paris is struck by the celebrations of the New Year, Grantaire's world is falling away at his feet as Enjolras teeters on the edge of sanity and something else entirely. Desperate to help Enjolras regain his footing, Grantaire tries to rebalance their lost equilibrium, but he doesn't know how to be the strong one, and he certainly doesn't know how to stop Apollo from falling. </p><p>Previously titled <i>Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spindrift (n): the salt spray swept by violent winds along the surface of the sea

Grantaire loves New Year in Paris. For the most part, he could take or leave this city. There are days when the whole place seems both empty and crowded, full of people but utterly bereft of anything that matters, and Grantaire hates it. He loathes it. He looks at the corners of the streets where the silent people live in poverty, and he hates how unmoved he is by their plight. He sees broken bottles in the gutters and dull cents by the roadside, and he wants to get out.

But then there are days spent with Enjolras, and suddenly the city – their city – is bright again, and beautiful. With Enjolras, he thinks he can see the silent people, and he can bring himself to help. He clears the streets of bottles and coins, and with Enjolras, he makes it a better place. They make it their own. He has lived here for five years and he has been in love with Enjolras for each day of every one, but he has only found this strange half-love for the city in the past year and a half, since the day that Enjolras came to him, windswept and hurried, and Grantaire was made peaceful by his kisses.

New Year, however, can only be enjoyed in Paris. Grantaire firmly believes it. It’s not because of the fireworks over the Seine, nor the Arc silhouetted against a backdrop of a city drenched in promise; it is entirely because Enjolras is here, and Enjolras loves this city. The city is the marrow in Enjolras’ bones, the red blood in his veins, and Grantaire thinks they exist in symbiosis; one cannot live without the other. Enjolras makes the city better, and in turn, the city thanks Enjolras by making him happy. That’s why Grantaire can’t even begin to imagine seeing the New Year turn in any other city. The promise of a new year can’t be made without Enjolras, and it certainly can’t be kept.

They have celebrated one New Year together before today, but then they had only been dating for five months, and they didn’t leave Grantaire’s flat. Not that Grantaire had minded, of course. Even now, he is jealous of Enjolras, and hoards their moments together like old shoeboxes. Despite that, he is such a part of Enjolras’ life now that he can’t imagine celebrating New Year without Enjolras’ friends.

They’re in the Musain, Grantaire’s bar of choice when he wants to get comfortably drunk but not obliteratedly so (Enjolras tolerates it less and less these days, and Grantaire does not want Enjolras to be intolerant of him ever again) and there are mere moments to go before they cast off the skin of the last year and live afresh in the new one. Grantaire is looking forward to it more than most, he thinks; although the last year was spent loving Enjolras and being loved in return, there are a thousand things he regrets about it, and he’s eager for a new year without those mistakes.

“It’s nearly time,” he whispers, squeezing Enjolras’ hand more tightly. Enjolras does not respond, which is most unlike him; Enjolras has an answer to everything, from statements, to rhetorical questions, to indisputable facts, and Grantaire is unused to silence from him. He looks at Enjolras, frowning slightly. Enjolras is not looking at Grantaire; instead, his attention is turned towards an empty corner of the bar. There seems to be a shadow across the other man’s face, his eyes dark and his mouth a tight line. Grantaire feels something like worry flicker in his mind.

“Are you all right?” he asks, and Enjolras turns suddenly, startled, meeting Grantaire’s eye with a guilty look. What he has to feel guilty about, Grantaire isn’t sure.

“I’m fine,” says Enjolras, and briefly casts his eye around the room.

Grantaire follows his gaze, and finds himself smiling reflexively. Behind them, he can see Enjolras’ friends – their friends, he corrects himself, because although he’s been part of their group for only a year or so, they have fully adopted him as one of their own – huddled together at a table in the far corner of the bar. He watches for a few moments as Jehan and Courfeyrac sit together, only a breath apart, talking about something trivial. The scene is underlined with the importance of their burgeoning relationship, and Grantaire wonders if the new year will be the chance they both need to admit how they each feel about one another. He sees Marius and Cosette, Cosette on her boyfriend’s lap, her arms around his neck as they stare lovingly at each other, and, despite the cliché of the image, Grantaire is oddly moved by the couple, how they spend hours like this, lost in themselves, and yet not a second is wasted. He glances to the left of Marius and Cosette and his heart falters a little as he notices Éponine watching the two of them, her face careful but not stoic enough to conceal her envy completely. Next to her, Combeferre is trying valiantly to distract her with a little origami swan that he’s fashioned out of one of Enjolras’ pamphlets.

Enjolras needs to see this, thinks Grantaire. He spends hours on those pamphlets, fact checking and proofreading until the sun is ripe, and Grantaire knows how Enjolras feels when he sees those pamphlets put to waste, discarded on seats after meetings and folded into hats and frogs by Jehan.

He turns to point Enjolras’ attention towards Combeferre’s clearly unforgivable misuse of his very important pamphlet, but Enjolras’ attention seems to be elsewhere. Quite where, Grantaire is unsure. His eyes are turned in the same direction as Grantaire’s, but he can’t be watching their friends because his expression is anything but fond. His gaze is unfocused and glassy, and Grantaire wonders what it is that he is seeing that makes him so ghostlike.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” asks Grantaire, because Enjolras still looks tired, like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

Before Enjolras can answer, Grantaire feels a pair of hands on his shoulders, and turns to find a positively jubilant Éponine, beaming wide and carelessly. He steals a glance back at Enjolras and sees his mouth fall shut, any answer that might have been forthcoming now silenced. Grantaire resolves to ask him about it later.

“Happy New Year!” cries Éponine, a fraction of a second before the rest of the bar explodes into excited cheers and screeches of the same thing, and Grantaire feels his worry about Enjolras fall away with the last stale seconds of the previous year. As the clock above the bar strikes midnight, Grantaire’s friends rush over and before he knows it, he is lost in a tangle of arms and mouths – he thinks his friends would call it a hug, but he’s fairly certain that the dictionary would disagree – and after several seconds of ecstatic celebration, he feels someone press a drink into his hand and drag him away from the group.

“Jehan?” he asks, and his friend beams, lifting their drink – a pint of Guinness, Grantaire notes with both admiration and revulsion – and clinking it against Grantaire’s own. Grantaire looks down and sees that Jehan has bought him a small glass of scotch. He’s impressed. Jehan has always been intuitive, and although they’re certainly not the closest pair in their circle of friends, he’s not surprised to find that Jehan knows more about him than Grantaire had given them credit for.

“It is I,” confirms Jehan, swaying slightly from the alcohol and New Year’s buzz. They’re wearing a purple, floor-length sequined dress, paired with scuffed army boots, and Grantaire thinks it says a lot about his life here that no-one in the bar even bats an eyelid. He likes it. He remembers his childhood, the years misspent in judgemental neighbourhoods in the small hills of the South; the contrast between his watchful old neighbours and the people with whom he now surrounds himself is so stark that he often wonders how he survived the past at all.

Jehan clears their throat, and Grantaire snaps his attention back to his friend.

“Did you want something?” he asks, and Jehan nods sombrely.

“It’s about next year,” they begin, and frown. “Well. This year, maybe. Whatever year we’re in now. I just wanted to talk to you about a collaborative idea I had, you know, about combining your artwork and my poetry... I think it would go down an absolute storm in Marseilles next year. Really next year, I mean.”

Grantaire nods slowly, taking it in. He’s never been one for collaborative efforts. He’s too selfish, or perhaps he’s not selfish enough - doesn’t have the confidence in his own work to believe that it could possibly help someone else’s to shine. Whatever his reasons, he’s never brought himself to consider it before.

But Jehan is different. He knows that. Jehan is so talented that it makes Grantaire ache sometimes. He reads their words and he hurts in a different way every time. Jehan’s poetry is like an old bruise; familiar, painful and fragile.

Jehan waves a hand airily.

“I don’t expect an answer right away,” they say. “I know what you’re like with your work. You could win every prize and accolade under the sun and you’d still refuse to exhibit. But trust me, Grantaire, I think this could be good. For both of us. You know, to get our names out there.”

It could, thinks Grantaire. It really could. Enjolras is always telling him to make more of his talent, to do something with his work, and this could be the chance Grantaire has never wanted to prove to Enjolras that he _can_ be something, that he _can_ do something right.

He has an answer already.

He scans the room quickly to catch sight of Enjolras, and spots him almost immediately. He’s standing at the other end of the bar, glass of what looks like lemonade clutched in both hands, and Combeferre is talking to him while Joly and Bossuet listen, rapt. He looks better, Grantaire thinks, but busy. They’re probably discussing next week’s rally in the suburbs. The last he heard of it, Bahorel had come to Enjolras with an offer from a friend to do the security, and Grantaire expects that this is what they’re discussing. No-one is overly enthusiastic about the idea of Bahorel’s friends taking charge of security - they’ve all seen the bruises on Bahorel’s face after returning from a night out with them - but Enjolras has confided in Grantaire that they don’t have any other option.

He turns his attention back to Jehan, who is regarding Grantaire with an amused quirk of their eyebrow, and Grantaire spreads his palms benevolently.

“I’m listening,” he says. “Tell me all.”

And Jehan does. They tell Grantaire all about their idea – and it’s a good one, Grantaire can admit, with Grantaire illustrating Jehan’s words just as Jehan builds upon Grantaire’s images – and Grantaire is so enraptured at the thought of how he might be spending the year ahead that he doesn’t even notice the time pass by until Musichetta, the bar owner, taps him on the shoulder and tells him it’s closing time. He bids Jehan farewell with a smile and a promise to think about it, although truth be told, he doesn’t need to think about it to know that he’s never been more excited about a potential project, and heads towards the corner of the room where Enjolras and Combeferre are sitting, embroiled in a quiet but heated discussion.

As Grantaire approaches, the two men look up, and Enjolras’ face becomes blank. Combeferre sighs.

“He’s all yours, Grantaire,” he says, standing up and dusting an imaginary speck of dust from the trousers of his corduroy suit. “I hope you have better luck with him than I did.”

Grantaire frowns as Combeferre leaves, and turns to Enjolras.

“What was that about?” he asks.

Enjolras shrugs. “We had a disagreement,” he replies.

“That’s not so unusual,” Grantaire says. “You’re always arguing with someone about something.”

Enjolras closes his eyes, and Grantaire can see that he is not in the mood for Grantaire’s comments. He still looks exhausted, which is perhaps unsurprising given the late hour, but still. Enjolras is often up late and rises early, and he never looks even a little tired.

“I’m sorry,” says Grantaire. “I didn’t mean - ”

“It’s OK,” interrupts Enjolras, and he opens his eyes, fixing Grantaire with a reassuring smile. “Really. I’m just tired, that’s all. Combeferre wanted to talk about the rally, and I didn’t have the energy. Let’s just go home.”

And in weeks to come, Grantaire thinks, he’ll kick himself for not noticing the signs, that Enjolras is _never_ too tired to talk about his causes, but he doesn’t push the matter.  He never asks Enjolras about his melancholy, and Enjolras is fine when they get home. Until he’s not.

* * *

January is a treacherous month, thinks Grantaire. Having started with a week of clear sunshine, crisp and freezing, it has diminished into day after day of lukewarm rain and dreary skies, all pretence of sunshine lost. It’s still dark when he wakes up to his alarm, telling him in the certain tones of Bastille that it’s ten o’clock and he really does have to get up and go to work, and he sighs in distaste as he turns the alarm off.

Bleary-eyed and fumbling, he throws the sheets off the bed as he always does, and pads towards their bedroom door. He’s about to open it and grab a quick shower before heading to work via the patisserie – croissants make even the longest shift seem short and sweet – when he hears a disgruntled groan. Furrowing his brow, he turns around, and there is Enjolras, still lying in bed but now bereft of bedcovers.

The sight is so unfamiliar that Grantaire actually wonders for a split second if he might be dreaming. Enjolras is never in bed when Grantaire gets up. It’s actually sort of a running joke between them at this point. Grantaire remembers Enjolras’ sister’s wedding, when Enjolras had had to employ the rather underhand tactic of initiating a round of incredibly satiating morning sex to ensure that Grantaire didn’t stay in bed all day and miss the ceremony. Grantaire is not a morning person in much the same sense that Marius quite likes Cosette; if the opportunity arose, Grantaire is certain that he would quite happily lie in bed until his stomach growled for want of lunch or dinner.

Enjolras is the polar opposite of Grantaire in this matter. Where Grantaire could stay in bed until the afternoon, Enjolras is never asleep after seven o’clock. At the first light in summer, Enjolras is awake and dressed, showered and already starting work on his next rally speech. In winter, Enjolras will rise long before the sun. Grantaire has always thought it to be both a repellent and endearing habit; repellent because he himself could never even begin to imagine taking up such a routine, and endearing because everything Enjolras does is endearing.

Today, however, it is ten o’clock, and Enjolras is still in bed.

Grantaire frowns and walks back over to the bed, sitting at the end of it and holding the bedcovers, not yet replacing them over Enjolras’ body, even though he must be cold; their apartment is heated on a timer, and it’s been off for the past hour.

He doesn’t know what to say.

“Don’t you have classes today, baby?” he finally asks, testing the term of endearment in the cold air between them. Enjolras is not one for nicknames. He rolls his eyes when Marius calls Cosette ‘honey’, and is tolerant of Grantaire’s tendency to call him ‘Apollo’ only because it is personal, and entirely a name of Grantaire’s own invention.

Grantaire expects him to roll his eyes, but Enjolras doesn’t.

“I don’t feel well,” he replies, facing away from Grantaire and keeping his eyes closed.

Grantaire remembers last May, when Enjolras had managed 100% attendance in the first year of his PhD despite an attack of mumps, but says nothing about it.

“I can take the day off, if you like, to look after you,” he begins instead, and Enjolras curls into the foetal position in response.

“No,” he says, over the slight rustling of the sheets. “It won’t help. You’ll just lose a day’s pay for nothing. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” And he doesn’t; his skin is waxy, his hair tangled, and Grantaire suddenly aches. He reaches out to draw the sheets over Enjolras’ body, and Enjolras flinches at the touch. Grantaire recoils instantly, feeling as though he’s been bitten – rejection is a sort of bite, he thinks – and Enjolras opens his eyes, looking immediately remorseful.

“I’ll see you later,” says Enjolras, and he manages a small half smile that does absolutely nothing to reassure the gnawing, ebbing worry in Grantaire’s gut that something is very, very wrong here. “Have a good day.”

Grantaire will not have a good day, he knows; he’ll spend all day worrying about Enjolras. Still, he nods, returning Enjolras’ almost smile, before leaning down and pressing a brief kiss to his forehead.

He leaves their apartment feeling as though he’s left something very important behind.

As always, his shift at the Corinth drags on. He serves some regular patrons, but can’t quite bring himself to enjoy their usual banter, and when he has to serve new customers, he doesn’t manage to strike up the friendly connection for which he’s famed, which makes people become regulars. And it’s irritating, because Grantaire is good at this. He’s good with people, and he’s good at this job. He wasn’t hired for nothing. And yet he’s making schoolboy errors, trivial mistakes, all for worrying about Enjolras.

Halfway through his shift, after he’s accidentally served alcohol to a teenage boy without asking for ID and then spilt a bottle of beer on some woman’s silk scarf, Éponine pulls him to one side, her lips pursed. He knows that look. He’s seen it a thousand times before, a brief warning before Éponine puts him to rights. He’s known her for five years, ever since he first came to Paris as a terrified art student from a small town, blinking and bewildered in the city lights and she became his city guide, a streetwise girl of his age with a full-time job in a bar and a pierced tongue even more cutting than his own.

They’ve grown up now, he knows. They’ve come a long way from the days of drunken revelry before 9am art classes and shifts, drinking vodka by the Seine and dancing to chase the stars from the sky. They’re the same, but different. Their youthful freedom has been dulled somewhat by the years.

One thing hasn’t changed, though, and that’s Éponine’s irrefutable ability to put Grantaire in his place. He sighs, awaiting the barrage of well-intentioned tellings-off.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, Éponine takes his hands in her own and regards him carefully. He returns her gaze, and she softens.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Grantaire shrugs. “Bad day,” he replies. It’s not exactly a lie.

Éponine huffs. “Grantaire,” she says, “I have seen you naked.” At this, an elderly patron at the bar lifts his head in interest, and Grantaire shudders. Éponine doesn’t so much as flinch, continuing in the same vein. “I have cleaned up your vomit from around your toilet, and I have gone to the corner shop at two in the morning to buy you vodka and tissues because you were – and I quote – sad, horny and alone.”

“Yes, thank you for the unnecessary trip down embarrassing memory lane,” mutters Grantaire, and Éponine smiles wryly.

“My point is this, darling,” she says. “You really, really don’t need to be embarrassed around me. Whatever it is you’re hiding, you can spit it out. I won’t judge you for it. Did I judge you when I caught you watching He-Man with Gavroche?”

Grantaire feels his face flush. “No,” he admits. “But this is different, Ép. I’m not embarrassed. It’s just... it’s different, that’s all.”

Éponine narrows her eyes almost imperceptibly, and Grantaire drops his gaze. She sighs.

“This is about Enjolras, isn’t it?” she asks, and Grantaire nods, still staring at the floor. There’s a fresh red wine stain by his feet. He hopes Éponine hasn’t noticed. It looks like blood.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong, before you ask,” Grantaire tells her, after a few moments. “He’s ill. He hasn’t gone to class.”

Éponine sucks in a sharp breath. “Shit,” she says. “That bad?”

“Yeah,” affirms Grantaire. “That bad.”

“Well, fuck,” says Éponine, rubbing a small circle in the skin between Grantaire’s thumb and forefinger reassuringly. “But Enjolras _never_ misses class.”

“I know,” says Grantaire, and he looks up at her again. She looks worried, and he feels a curl of something stronger than worry in the pit of his gut, because Éponine doesn’t even _like_ Enjolras. She hasn’t liked him since Grantaire stumbled into the Musain four and a half years ago, drunk on wine and something like despair because Enjolras didn’t like him. She still associates the Enjolras of today with the younger and more callous Enjolras of those early years, Grantaire knows, and for all that time has eroded Éponine’s youthful freedom, she can’t bring herself to believe that it’s also weathered Enjolras’ pride and terribleness.

If Éponine is worried about Enjolras, then Grantaire is right. There is something horribly wrong.

Éponine swallows, and then fixes a bright smile across her thin features. “You need to take your mind off it,” she says. “You look awful, Grantaire. You know that I love you, but honestly, you look like you’ve just caught someone murdering your cat. You need a drink.”

Grantaire raises an eyebrow, and she flushes. Of all his friends, she has found it the hardest to admit that Grantaire has cut down on his drinking out of necessity. He wonders if she thinks he’s doing it because of Enjolras, and if that’s why she resents the decision. If she knew what Enjolras knew, he thinks, if she knew that his tongue was sharpened to knifepoint by the dull bottom of a wine bottle, and that his words had cut his friends to ribbons, then she wouldn’t question it. She would thank Enjolras, if she still believed it to be his work.

“All right,” she amends. “A very small drink. But you know what I mean. You need to get out of that apartment for an evening.”

“I’m not sure,” he replies, chewing his lip. “If Enjolras is ill, then I don’t want to leave him. He might need me.”

Éponine raises an eyebrow. “That’s what mobile phones are for,” she counters. “And besides, you’re not at home now. He told you to come in today, didn’t he? I bet he did.”

Grantaire doesn’t answer, and she correctly takes his silence as agreement.

“I knew it!” she crows. “Look, Grantaire, you know I don’t love the guy. You know that. But you do, and I love you, so by default I support your relationship. I’m not telling you this because I want to cause an argument. I’m telling you this because you need a break. I barely see you outside of working hours any more. Do you even go out?”

Grantaire shrugs again. “Sometimes,” he says, and it’s not untrue. He met Jehan and Courfeyrac for brunch last week. They'd called it brunch but, being a trio of late-risers, it was 4pm by the time they’d even agreed on a café to meet at. Besides, he and Enjolras went to an exhibition at the Louvre the weekend before. They’d made a full weekend of it, at Enjolras’ insistence, booking a room at a hotel nearby, despite living only ten stops away on the Metro. They’d eaten at an expensive restaurant on the Saturday and drank at a dive of a bar on the Sunday, and they’d gone home on the Metro, holding hands and arguing good-naturedly about the place of art in a decaying society. It had been fun. Grantaire had glowed, and Enjolras had shone.

“You need to get out more,” is all Éponine says, taking in his distant smile as he reminisces. “Call Enjolras. Text him. Whatever. We’re going out after work, and if he doesn’t like it, then he can come with. Either way, you’re going out, with or without him.”

Grantaire sighs. He can’t deny that the thought is appealing. He thinks of his apartment: cold and dark, as it was that morning, and of Enjolras alone in the bed. He thinks of the Musain: warm and bustling and inviting, and of Éponine’s raucous laughter and gossip.

He knows which appeals most, although he’s not going to pretend that he doesn’t feel guilty about it.

“All right,” he agrees, and Éponine beams. “Seeing as you’ll only henpeck me more if I don’t.”

“You know me so well.”

She offers him one last warm grin before turning to admonish the eavesdropping patron, and Grantaire takes his phone out of his jeans and composes a quick text to Enjolras, explaining that he’ll be back later in the evening, before sending it with a picture of Éponine explaining the concept of privacy to a browbeaten old man. He shoves his phone back in his pocket and tries to ignore the gnawing hint of remorse that’s threatening to eat through his heart.

The rest of his shift passes more smoothly now that he knows that Enjolras is aware of his plans, and five o’clock rolls around more quickly than Grantaire had anticipated. He works efficiently with Éponine to clean up before Abel and Laurine come to take over their shifts, and he’s out of the Corinth by quarter past, holding onto Éponine’s arm like a nervous prom date.

“To the Musain?” Éponine asks, and they both know that it’s not really a question. Grantaire nods, smiling.

“Just let me check my phone,” he says, and takes his phone out of his pocket. He doesn’t really expect Enjolras to have replied. Enjolras isn’t hugely fond of texting, being more of an orator than a writer, and so it’s not really a surprise when there’s no response.

Éponine looks at him. “Any word from his lordship?”

Grantaire shakes his head. “I think he’s probably gone out,” he says. “There was a Classics lecture in my old campus hall that he was thinking of going to.”

Éponine pulls a face. “How fascinating,” she says.

Grantaire shrugs. He doesn’t know how to explain to her that Enjolras’ interest in the Classics comes solely from Grantaire’s final year thesis and subsequent exhibitions. He doesn’t know how to tell Éponine that Grantaire had taken Enjolras to every Greek-inspired exhibition, every research seminar about Castor and Pollux, Pylades and Orestes, in the months before they first kissed. He can’t put it into words how their relationship might never have come to fruition if it weren’t for the rapture in Enjolras’ eyes as he listened to the odysseys of Nisus and Euralys. How he owes their first meeting to wine and Enjolras’ love of social justice, but he owes their every last meeting to Patroclus and Achilles.

He doesn’t even try. Éponine is in love with Marius because he called her beautiful when they were both drunk and lonely, and she doesn’t know of anything else. Not yet.

“It is to us,” he says instead, and he pats her hand. “Shall we go, then?”

They go.

By the time Grantaire returns to their apartment, he feels warm and fuzzy from two glasses of wine. He unlocks the front door without fumbling, fingers not trembling from intoxication, and he allows himself a moment to feel proud of his control. He is not drunk. He is tipsy, and it is enough.

It _is_ enough.

He pushes open the door, listening to the creak of wood on varnish, and closes it firmly, dropping his keys in the ashtray by the latch. The apartment is still dark, with all the lights off, although the heating has come on recently. He can hear the faint gurgling of the boiler, and the air feels thick.

Enjolras has gone out after all, he supposes. It’s not late; although it’s pitch black, it’s not yet nine o’clock, and it’s not unreasonable that Enjolras should still be out. He often meets with Combeferre and Courfeyrac late in the evening to go over plans and events, and sometimes Grantaire goes with him, but more often he doesn’t. He’ll never miss a meeting, but Enjolras’ rendezvous with Combeferre and Courfeyrac are private. For the leaders only. Grantaire is neither a leader nor a follower, and he is perfectly content with discussing other people’s beliefs only once a week at their Saturday meetings.

Toeing the door closed fully to the click, Grantaire turns on the living room light. The room is bathed in a dull glow almost immediately, and it’s home. There’s a growing patch of mould on the ceiling above the front window – they should really get that looked at, Grantaire knows, but it’ll only grow back – and the wall adjacent to the kitchen area has gained a damp stain the shape of Italy, but it’s home. The heating makes the air hang hot and humid like old clothes, and Grantaire is home.

He takes a deep breath and flings himself onto the sofa. Éponine was right. He did need to go out. It had been a good evening. He had laughed with Éponine about Marius’ haircut – he does look slightly like a poodle, although Cosette fully approves – and when Feuilly and Bahorel showed up by chance, Grantaire had been brought up-to-date on their lives. He learnt that Bahorel’s friends are banned from doing the security at any more of Enjolras’ rallies after one of them started a fight with a sixteen year old girl, and that Feuilly is considering opening his own business at some point in the year.

In turn, he told them of his planned collaboration with Jehan. He’s started work on a painting already, based on one of Jehan’s most recent poems, although he didn’t tell them any of the details despite their eager questioning. He waxed lyrical about the weekend he'd spent with Enjolras at the Louvre, explaining the significance behind his certain otherwise meaningless Instagram posts and Facebook statuses. Feuilly had agreed that it was a weekend well spent. Bahorel and Éponine had exchanged baffled glances. Grantaire had even managed to refuse Feuilly’s offer to buy him another drink without causing any offence.

Yes, it had been a good evening, and Grantaire has never been so happy to be home. He wonders if Enjolras will be interested in Feuilly’s news when he gets back. Enjolras has always been a keen supporter of local businesses, always favouring artisan cafes over the myriad Starbucks of the inner city and eschewing reasonably priced supermarkets for more expensive independent shops. It’s not always been particularly beneficial for their rent payments, but it makes Enjolras happy, and so Grantaire encourages it. He thinks he would encourage Enjolras to pursue the life goal of becoming a piranha trainer if he thought it would make Enjolras happy.

He yawns, suddenly aware of how utterly shattered he is. He’s spent six hours on his feet and three more in a busy room, and his head thumps. Ordinarily, he’d wait for Enjolras to get home and coax him to bed early with the suggestion of lazy, languid sex, but this evening, for some reason, he’s not in the mood for that. He needs a nap, he thinks. Perhaps when Enjolras gets back, he’ll be slightly more energised. He really does like lazy, languid sex.

Stretching, he heaves himself up from the sofa and heads towards the bedroom, which is so dark that it looks like it’s soaked in ink; the curtains are drawn, presumably to retain the heat, and not even a shard of moonlight pierces through. Grantaire sighs, momentarily rueing his dark little apartment, before flicking on the light switch, letting his eyes adjust before trying to find where the hell he threw his t-shirt last night (things had been neither particularly lazy nor languid last night, not that Grantaire had minded).

His eyes adjust, and Grantaire blinks, his heart dropping almost audibly in his chest.

Enjolras is in bed.

Grantaire lifts a hand to his mouth, and he can feel himself start to tremble. It’s not from the alcohol, he knows, and the worm-like sensation of nausea in his belly isn’t drunkenness either. He is worried. Enjolras is in bed, and he is worried.

“Enjolras?” he whispers, pulse thudding and voice shaking. Enjolras sniffs and stretches his arms out over his head, opening his eyes and looking at Grantaire, and Grantaire’s stomach drops even further. Enjolras’ eyes are tired, so very, very tired – whether it’s from lack of sleep or too much of it, Grantaire can’t be sure.

Enjolras clears his throat. “I told you,” he says, voice dry and hard from exhaustion. “I don’t feel well.”

He stares at Grantaire, as though challenging him to comment on it, and Grantaire opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t know what to say. There is nothing to say, because this hasn’t happened. It can’t have. The front door was still locked from when Grantaire left this morning, and Enjolras hasn’t woken up all day. This isn’t Enjolras. This can’t be. This man is quiet and there is nothing behind his eyes, no fire or flame of passion or belief, only empty anger, and Enjolras hasn’t woken up.

Grantaire swallows, and Enjolras blinks, his fierce glare not faltering, and Grantaire falters instead.

“OK,” he says quietly, and he peels off his shirt, stepping out of his trousers and toeing off his socks, and turns off the light. The room is shrouded in the black mist of winter night-time, and Grantaire would imagine himself alone if it weren’t for the steady sound of Enjolras’ breathing.

Perhaps he is alone, and Enjolras’ breath is mere hallucination. It would almost make more sense.

In the darkness, he picks his way across the floorboards, taking care not to slip on his scattered clothes, and climbs into bed next to Enjolras. The sheets on this side are cold, and Grantaire wonders if it’s any warmer on Enjolras’ side. For some reason, he doubts it. He doesn’t try to find out.

Moments pass, or perhaps it’s hours; without the rise and fall of the moon, or the steady touch of skin on skin, it’s hard to tell. Enjolras and Grantaire do not sleep apart. They fall asleep as they wake; entangled in a knot of limbs, warm and touching, and never like this. Never two lonely people in one bed.

After an indeterminable stretch of time spent alone in the darkness, Grantaire feels the bed sheets shift on Enjolras’ side. He remains still, feigning sleep, keeping his breaths low and even. There’s a small rush of cold as the sheets move and allow the now unheated air from the room to creep under them, and then Enjolras is _back_ , his knees resting in the crook of Grantaire’s thighs, his arms snaking around Grantaire’s chest, his body warm against Grantaire’s back, and he is there.

Grantaire doesn’t move, afraid of frightening Enjolras into moving away. Instead, he remains stock still, and Enjolras sighs. Grantaire can feel his breath against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” says Enjolras, his voice small and quiet in the vastness of the dark room, and Grantaire’s heart thuds so heavily that he’s sure Enjolras can feel it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Grantaire doesn’t answer, and after a few moments, Enjolras sighs again, and Grantaire feels him shift himself into a more comfortable position, his arms wrapped more tightly around Grantaire.

He falls into something like sleep after within moments, or perhaps it’s hours.

When he wakes up, he is alone, and he can smell coffee. Still half asleep, he goes into the kitchen. Enjolras is sitting at the table with a pot of coffee, the newspaper and a pile of notes on his forthcoming speech. When he notices Grantaire, he grins sheepishly and pushes over the newspaper.

“I saved the crossword,” he says, by way of greeting. “Well, I filled in Four Across, because it was ‘optimism’, and I didn’t think you’d get it.”

Grantaire sticks his tongue out and Enjolras raises an eyebrow in mock distaste, pushing the pot of coffee across the table.

“Don’t I get a cup?” asks Grantaire.

“Get your own cup, you lazy ruffian,” says Enjolras, and freezes. It’s almost unnoticeable, but Grantaire is finely attuned to Enjolras and he can’t help but spot the way his eyes still from poring over his notes. Grantaire thinks he knows why; perhaps Enjolras is expecting a barb about which one of them is really lazy. After all, it was Grantaire who got out of bed yesterday.

But Grantaire is content to keep surprising Enjolras, and so he simply shrugs and heads towards the cupboard, poking Enjolras in the shoulder on his way over to reassure him that he’s not angry, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the relief that ghosts across Enjolras’ face.

“Three Down is ‘Dionysus’,” says Enjolras, as Grantaire takes his seat again. “I thought you’d like that one, so I left it for you.”

“Well, you’ve told me now.”

“You’d have found it in seconds.”

“I would have.”

The kitchen smells like coffee and companionship, and Enjolras is awake.

They don’t talk about yesterday.

* * *

The Musain is blissfully quiet on Saturday evenings, which has always surprised Grantaire. He’s always thought that it should be busiest at this time, with weekend drinkers and weekday workers coming together to create a cacophony of noise and movement.

That’s not the case, though. Although the lower floor of the bar might be almost full – Grantaire doesn’t know, but he can hear the odd rowdy patron here and there – the upstairs area is empty but for Grantaire and his friends, and Grantaire is thankful for it. The temptation to drink is always heightened when he’s around crowds of drunken people, and none of his friends here are so much as approaching that state. Not even Grantaire. He looks down at the glass in his hand. It’s only small, filled with whisky bought for him by Jehan, and he grins, because he knows that it will be both his first and last of the evening. It would have been rude to refuse just one, after all.

Next to him, Courfeyrac sighs. “I’m starting to think that he’s going to be late,” he says, shifting in his seat with impatience.

Grantaire looks at the clock on the far wall. “The meeting’s not due to start for another five minutes,” he replies. “He’ll be here.”

Courfeyrac worries at his lip, and draws a blank face in the condensation on his beer glass. “Maybe,” he acquiesces, “although let’s be honest, if Enjolras isn’t ten minutes early, he may as well be late.”

It’s true, Grantaire knows. Enjolras has always been of the mind that tardiness is a concept made for people who aren’t him. Lateness is not something that he has ever understood or condoned. It’s been a bone of contention between the two of them throughout their relationship, with Grantaire viewing lateness as one of life’s greatest gifts. They’re stolen minutes, he thinks, and if a man can steal something as grand as time, then he should want for nothing. Enjolras, predictably, usually scoffs at this philosophy.

The clock marks a few more seconds, and Courfeyrac drums his fingers arrhythmically on the table. There is silence but for the faint tap of fingers against wood, and then Jehan sighs.

“If he doesn’t show up within the next four minutes, I am going to braid his hair right after the meeting,” they say, picking petulantly at a hole in the sleeve of their jumper; a hideous hand-knitted confection in all the wrong shades of blue. “I’ll braid the shit out of it. That’ll show him.”

“He’s not even late,” counters Grantaire, although Enjolras _is_ late by his own definition of the word, and Grantaire doesn’t know why.

“Flowers,” says Jehan, a sinister tone in their voice. “I’ll plait his perfect hair with roses and poison ivy.”

“The meeting hasn’t started yet!” Grantaire insists. Jehan pouts in response.

“I hope he’s all right,” mutters Joly, and Courfeyrac rolls his eyes.

“He’s fine,” he says. “I’ll bet he’s just got caught up in planning next week’s protest. We have to find new security, remember?”

From the adjacent table, Bahorel raises his voice. “My guys are still willing,” he pipes up, and there’s a groan of disbelieving laughter from almost everyone.

“Not fucking likely,” says Courfeyrac. “You’re lucky that friend of yours didn’t end up in jail for assault!”

“It was a minor quibble,” sulks Bahorel.

“He broke her nose!”

“She deserved it.”

“She was 16!” interjects Joly.

“Well, she still deserved it.”

Combeferre stands up suddenly, his chair raking across the weathered floorboards and making Grantaire wince.

“Enjolras will sort it,” he says, a tone of warning in his voice that no-one misses, and Courfeyrac sticks his tongue out. Bahorel responds by pushing his nose up and making a grotesque face. Courfeyrac wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“Oh my God,” mumbles Jehan. “And this is why we need Enjolras.”

“We really do,” agrees Combeferre, sitting down again.

Grantaire downs the rest of his whisky. He could really use another one. He wonders if he has time to sneak downstairs and order one before Enjolras arrives, and then feels horribly guilty for even considering it. He has had a drink. He does not need another one.

God, he needs another one.

Combeferre eyes him strangely from across the table, and Grantaire swears silently to himself.

“Are you all right?” asks Combeferre, and Grantaire nods too briskly to convince.

He feels Courfeyrac squeeze his shoulder reassuringly.

“He’ll be here soon,” says Courfeyrac.

Grantaire wonders what it says about him that his friends think that he’s driven to drink by the thought of Enjolras being only one minute early to a meeting. Then, he wonders what it says about himself that his friends are entirely correct in their assumptions.

“Yeah,” he says, and forces some sort of smile.

Combeferre frowns. “Is there something else wrong, Grantaire?” he asks. He sounds worried, and for a moment, Grantaire almost believes that he is worried for _him_ , but then Combeferre continues, “Is Enjolras all right?” and Grantaire can’t quite quash the disappointment he feels at the revelation that of course Combeferre is worried about Enjolras and not Grantaire, because Grantaire is only here for Enjolras, isn’t he? Without Enjolras, there’s no point in Grantaire being here at all.

The thought isn’t a new one – it’s so old at this point that it’s almost stale in its bitterness – but it still stings.

“Enjolras is fine,” Grantaire replies tersely, and stands up, shaking Courfeyrac’s hand from his arm. “I’m going to get a drink.”

Combeferre blinks rapidly, and pushes his chair out as though he’s going to stand up too, before thinking better of it and looking at Jehan helplessly.

Jehan looks at Grantaire. “He didn’t mean it like that,” they offer, and Grantaire shrugs.

“You only bought me a small glass,” he counters, emphasising the first word, driving home the point that Grantaire didn’t buy his first drink.

 Jehan looks down at their lap, guilty, and Grantaire purses his lips so he doesn’t say anything he might regret, and lose the moral high ground. He goes to get a drink.

On his way downstairs he bumps into Enjolras, who is making such a mad dash to get upstairs before he’s officially late that he almost doesn’t notice Grantaire. He does, though, and his expression changes from hurry to concern.

He takes Grantaire by the arm, pulling him to the side of the staircase, and frowns.

“Are you leaving?” he asks.

Grantaire momentarily toys with the idea of lying. Perhaps leaving would be better, anyway. Perhaps the disappointment that Enjolras might feel at Grantaire missing one of his precious meetings would be far less harsh than the disappointment he knows Enjolras would suffer at seeing Grantaire drunk.

But this is Enjolras, after all, and Grantaire has never lied to him, and he’s not about to start now.

“I was going to get a drink,” he answers, and Enjolras’ face falls. “Don’t pity me.”

“I never pity you,” says Enjolras, and he rubs small circles into Grantaire’s skin. “I only worry about you.”

“Well don’t.”

“Then don’t give me any reason to.” Enjolras looks at Grantaire, eyes imploring. Something bends inside Grantaire, bends and bends and finally breaks, and he slumps, resigning to always give in to Enjolras, and never to himself.

“Let’s go upstairs,” says Grantaire, and Enjolras beams, although Grantaire thinks that there’s still something darker behind his eyes. Something like worry, perhaps, or sadness. It’s hard to tell in the dim light of the Musain.

It makes him brave, the thought that Enjolras is troubled and unwilling to share it, because Grantaire has always been a coward when it comes to admitting his problems and it’s never done him any good. It makes him want to be anything but scared now, because if Enjolras falls into the same trap as Grantaire, then they might both as well be doomed.

“Why were you late?” he asks. “I mean, you’re never late.”

Enjolras’ gaze flits from Grantaire’s face for a moment, unfocused and hesitant, and then he looks back at Grantaire and lifts one shoulder in a slight shrug.

“I had things to do,” he says. He lets go of Grantaire’s arm and claps his hands together, and Grantaire knows they are finished talking about this for the moment. “Shall we go upstairs?”

Grantaire never does get that second drink, but he doesn’t stop thinking about it either.

* * *

Enjolras has always been in perfect health. It’s sort of hilarious, really, because, as usual, Grantaire is the polar opposite; always ill in some way or another. When he’s feeling particularly daring, Grantaire comments that it’s probably due to Enjolras’ good breeding. In truth, it’s probably a combination of Enjolras’ staunch veganism and refusal to drive anywhere he can walk, but it’s much more amusing to watch the dangerous tilt to Enjolras’ eyebrow that comes to Enjolras’ eyebrows only when he feels that he’s being made fun of.

So, considering Enjolras’ record, Grantaire is more than a little confused when he comes home from work, plops himself on the sofa ready for a very sedentary few hours, and promptly sits on a very uncomfortable packet of pills. Enjolras has never taken so much as a paracetamol, and Grantaire frowns as he picks up the packet and squints to make out the name. He never understands the logic behind naming these things; they always seem like endless strings of letters to him, just vowels and consonants beaded together into a word that’s too long for anyone to pronounce on the first attempt, and this packet is no different. It’s just a long word, so unfamiliar that it might just as well not be a word at all, and the name doesn’t mean anything to Grantaire.

He turns the packet over in his hand, brow still furrowed in confusion, and reads the information. The first thing he notices is a list of side effects. _Fatigue, nausea, muscle pain, mood swings, dizziness, weight gain, insomnia_ , he reads.

He thinks back to the previous night, when Enjolras had come home early from a meeting with Bossuet and Combeferre, and how he had looked so pale and ill. Grantaire had put it down to Enjolras being overworked, but as he reads over the list of side effects on the pill packet again, everything slots into place.

It’s almost odd how relieved he feels, because he finally has an answer. He knows why Enjolras has been sleeping more, and he has an explanation for Enjolras’ inexplicable mood swings, and it’s no longer a mystery as to why Enjolras tosses and turns at night, sleeping instead in the early hours of the morning – often into the late hours, too. It’s the answer he’s been trying to find for the past month.

And yet it’s not a relief. Not really. Not at all. It’s something else entirely, because Enjolras is taking these pills for some reason, and Grantaire doesn’t know why.

He flips over the packet again and scours the front of the box for any more information. It’s carefully blank. Grantaire supposes it’s intentional, so that the people who take the pills won’t be embarrassed when they’re found by their nosy boyfriends between the sofa cushions, but still. It’s not helpful. All he manages to get from the front of the packet is that each pill contains 20mg of something called citalopram hydrobromide, which might as well be in German, for all that Grantaire understands it, and that pharmaceutical companies should probably invest a little more money in their graphic design teams.

He’s about to open the packet when he hears the bedroom door opening behind him, and he drops the packet immediately. He turns to see Enjolras, sleep-rumpled and yawning. He looks as though he’s just woken up, although he’s fully clothed, so Grantaire supposes he’s taken a nap rather than stayed in bed all day, which is an improvement on last week.

Grantaire offers a smile, and curses himself for his inability to hide his guilt when Enjolras’ expression falters, changing from exhaustion into nervousness.

“What are you doing?” asks Enjolras, and Grantaire shrugs, aiming for nonchalant but ending up with suspicious.

“I just got in,” he replies. “I was going to watch TV for a bit. I think the news is on, if you want to join.”

Enjolras makes no move. Instead, he narrows his eyes, and Grantaire feels his heart-rate jump.

“What were you looking at when I came in?” asks Enjolras, more specific this time, and Grantaire swallows hard.

“Just...” He fumbles around, gesticulating nondescriptly for a few moments before sighing and giving up. This is Enjolras. He doesn’t lie to Enjolras. He won’t.

He picks up the pill packet from behind the sofa cushion, where he’d shoved it in his vain haste to hide it from Enjolras. Enjolras’ face darkens instantly, and Grantaire’s breath hitches in his throat. They don’t have secrets. They never have. And yet it’s very clear that this is supposed to be just that.

“Those are mine,” says Enjolras eventually, his voice careful and low.

Grantaire figures that he’s already in too deep. He might as well drown.

“What are they?” he asks, holding the packet out in a gesture of openness, and Enjolras doesn’t meet his eye any more.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” He isn’t angry, not really, but he’s frustrated. He’s confused at the fact that Enjolras insists on transparency at all times – that Enjolras will readily tell Grantaire everything about himself, and expects Grantaire to offer him the same courtesy in return – but has completely hidden this. It hurts, Grantaire realises. He was used to being lied to, once, but that was years ago, before Paris left its mark, and he’s not used to it any more. “It matters that you didn’t tell me. That you _won’t_ tell me.”

Something shifts in Enjolras at that, and he closes his eyes. He looks defeated, Grantaire thinks, and it’s a startling revelation, because Enjolras has never looked defeated, not ever, and yet here he is, standing in their living room, and he’s never looked so small.

“They’re anti-depressants.”

Grantaire blinks, and he wonders if it’s possible for someone’s world to shatter like old glass at 5pm on a Friday.

Perhaps he misheard. He must have. Enjolras can’t be taking anti-depressants, because Enjolras is _Enjolras_ , and he isn’t depressed. He can’t be. Enjolras gets up and works and studies and laughs and inspires, and he isn’t depressed. He is serious and wild, beautiful and terrible, and he can’t be ill. Not like this. He’s a vegan, for goodness’ sake. Depressed people don’t plan successful rallies and lobby for political change in their spare time between scoring perfect marks on their PhD papers, do they? Depressed people sit in dark corners and talk to whisky bottles like old friends, and they cry in the streets. Grantaire has seen them.

Enjolras smiled three times yesterday and argued with Combeferre about the nature of society’s responsibility towards the impoverished, and he is wonderful.

Except sometimes Enjolras stays in bed all day and turns up late for meetings, and sometimes he looks at things so distantly that Grantaire wonders if he really sees anything at all.

Grantaire wets his lips to speak, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have the vocabulary for this situation. He shouldn’t need it.

“Why are you taking anti-depressants?” he asks eventually, and the words sound wrong.

“Why do you think?”

Enjolras shifts his weight from his left foot to his right and clasps his hands behind his back, and he looks so afraid that it’s all Grantaire can do not to rush over and hold him until he isn’t afraid any more. He’s not sure he can do that, though, and so he settles for dropping the packet of pills onto the coffee table in front of him and extending his arms towards Enjolras, inviting him to sit on the sofa next to Grantaire, and Enjolras does. He sits with his hands folded in his lap, frozen and averting Grantaire’s eye, like he’s worried that he’s not allowed to touch Grantaire, and Grantaire is sure that he feels his heart break a little. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around Enjolras’ wrist, taking comfort in the solidity of the little bones, and he’s grateful that at least one part of Enjolras is unchanged. He is made of the same things he always was.

“How long?” Grantaire asks, and Enjolras remains still, gaze focused solely on the coffee table.

“Three months,” he answers.

“Three months?” Grantaire repeats. Enjolras looks at him finally. “You didn’t tell me. You could have told me.”

Enjolras shrugs, and chews his lip for a second. Enjolras never has to think before he speaks. Sometimes, Combeferre says, Enjolras would do well to break that habit, but Grantaire can’t remember a single time that Enjolras has said anything other than what needed to be said. His words can be cutting, caustic, but they are never wrong. Now, he is choosing his words, and that scares Grantaire.

“I didn’t know how to be that person,” are the first words he chooses to say, and it sounds like a confession. “Everyone always thinks I’m the better person, but I’m not, am I? Not if I’m like this.” He smiles sadly, and it’s such a fragile thing that Grantaire wants to frame it before it fades forever, because he’s starting to wonder when he’ll next see Enjolras smile. He reaches out and places his left hand on Enjolras’ jaw, stroking what he hopes are reassuring touches on Enjolras’ temple. Enjolras meets his eye, and the smile falters, but doesn’t break. “I can’t be Apollo when I can’t even be myself.”

The nickname is seldom formed on Enjolras’ tongue, and Grantaire recognises the irony of the situation – that Enjolras can only speak the name when he’s denying it. And it’s fine, Grantaire realises, because he doesn’t need Enjolras to be Apollo. He doesn’t.

Once, Apollo had been a perfect boy; clear cut words of revolution in the upstairs of the Musain. He had been tumbling hair and rosy lips and red jackets, and he had been enough. Then, Enjolras had been so imperfect that it made Grantaire ache. He had been white-gold hair scraped into a bun; he had been a heavy sleeper and a coffee drinker and a freckle on his hip, and he had been everything.

Grantaire can’t articulate it. That’s why he paints: because he never has the right words. It crosses his mind that he has painted Apollo, but never Enjolras.

 “I don’t want you to be Apollo,” he says, and Enjolras looks down at his lap where Grantaire’s right hand still holds his wrist delicately. “I want you to be yourself.”

“I’ve tried. I’m trying. It’s been harder these past few weeks,” says Enjolras.

“Why?”

Grantaire doesn’t mean for the question to sound like an accusation, but it comes out that way all the same. If Enjolras has noticed, though, he doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I don’t know. It’s just getting harder.”

The thought of Enjolras suffering makes something inside Grantaire ache, and he looks at the other man, at how drawn his face is, how completely finished he looks, and he wonders if he’s been blind for a very long time.

“How long have you felt like this?” he questions.

Enjolras shrugs again. “Maybe six months. Seven, perhaps.”

“But we went to the Louvre,” is the first thing that Grantaire can think to say, and it sounds ridiculous out loud, the words hanging in the air between them like a bad joke, but Enjolras doesn’t flinch. “You were fine.”

He had been fine, hadn’t he? They’d looked at old paintings and laughed at the improbable contortions of the subjects. They’d made fun of the monkey-like dogs in the Renaissance paintings, and Enjolras had let Grantaire pretend to waltz him around the Greek statues. They’d laughed, and Enjolras had seemed fine.

“I was with you,” says Enjolras. “It was enough.”

“But it’s not now?”

“It is sometimes.” Enjolras finally meets Grantaire’s eye again, and he seems more resigned than anything else. It does absolutely nothing to reassure Grantaire. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You don’t have to. I just wish you’d told me,” Grantaire tells him, and Enjolras nods slowly.

“I really am sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean to be...” He waves his free hand around airily, and huffs a sarcastic laugh. “I’m terrible at this.”

Grantaire doesn’t know what he means by ‘this’. Enjolras has always been terrible at talking about his feelings, although he’s improved upon Grantaire’s insistence that they actually discuss their problems with each other instead of arguing and blurting out cruel truths. But it’s entirely possible that Enjolras is referring to this new thing, this alien illness that seems to threaten to tear at the edges of everything that makes Enjolras who he is, and Grantaire doesn’t know how he can tell Enjolras that it will be all right when he doesn’t know that it will.

Grantaire chooses to accept the first meaning.

“I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he says, and it seems as though he’s said the right thing because Enjolras smiles at him again, a genuine smile that reaches his eyes, and he leans forward and kisses Grantaire.

It’s only brief, but it’s enough that Grantaire can tell that Enjolras still tastes the same, still feels as he always has, and he starts to think that perhaps a packet of 20mg pills doesn’t need to mean that much after all.

* * *

Enjolras is late to the next meeting. Combeferre puffs out his cheeks and exhales, clearly bored, and Grantaire draws dots on his glass of coke with his index finger in the condensation.

“Why is he late this time?” asks Bossuet.

Next to him, Joly prods Bossuet in his side, and Bossuet lets out a yelp that startles Marius into ending his make out session with Cosette, something for which Grantaire is inherently grateful.

“He has a lot on his mind,” is Grantaire’s idle response, and if Combeferre narrows his eyes at that, then Grantaire can pretend he doesn’t see.

Enjolras arrives ten minutes later, and although his hair is pulled into a lazy, loose bun, his speech is perfect.

* * *

A week before Valentine’s Day, Enjolras surprises Grantaire by waking him at 7am to make love. There’s no reason for it, not as far as Grantaire can discern, and it’s like it used to be, in the days before 20mg pills and late meetings. It’s a little like coming home.

Enjolras goes back to sleep afterwards, and doesn’t get up until Grantaire has to be at work for his 11am shift.

* * *

Éponine leans on the bar at the Corinth, and eyes Grantaire warily.

“Something’s going on with you,” she says. “You seem different today.”

“In a good way or a bad way?” Grantaire asks flippantly, and that startles a laugh out of her.

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” she replies, and starts tidying the bottles that the last patron left. “It’s like you’ve been busy, and now you’re not.”

Grantaire shrugs.

“I’m always busy,” he says, fixing her with a saccharine smile. “You make sure of that.”

Éponine swats him with a tea towel.

“Ha-ha,” she says sarcastically. “But no, really. Are you all right? The last time I spoke to you about it, Enjolras was acting weird. Did you ever get to the bottom of that?”

Grantaire considers the question, and for a moment, he really thinks that he’ll tell her the truth. He thinks he’ll tell her about the time Enjolras snapped at him for getting up too late on Monday, and then slept until gone midday on Tuesday. He thinks he’ll tell her about the way Enjolras always looks tired now, even when he’s smiling, and about those 20mg pills. He has always told Éponine the truth. But then he thinks that this is not his truth to tell, not really; it is Enjolras’, and if Enjolras hasn’t told anyone else, then it’s not Grantaire’s place to do it for him.

“Yeah,” he responds, trying to sound as casual as possible. “We worked it out.”

Éponine narrows her eyes, but doesn’t press the subject.

“Good,” she says. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, are you going to help me clean up this shit, or are you just going to stand there and look pretty?”

He rolls his eyes in mock irritation and she cackles, throwing him a cleaning cloth. He pokes his tongue out at her and she returns the gesture, and for a moment, everything is all right.

It feels wrong, lying to Éponine, but the alternative feels worse.

* * *

Grantaire’s phone rings when he’s on his way to work, and he scrabbles about in the deep pockets of his outdoor jacket trying to find it.

“Hello?” he says breathlessly. He’s already ten minutes late, and although he knows Éponine will cover for him, he’s fully aware that he’ll pay for it later. Last time, she made him clean her shoes for a week. Éponine has a lot of shoes.

“Hello,” says Enjolras.

Grantaire grins, shifting his phone from his left hand to his right so as to shield Enjolras’ voice from the noise of the road. “I saw you five minutes ago.”

He hears Enjolras sniff dismissively, and Grantaire laughs.

“I just thought I’d phone you to tell you how much I enjoyed this morning,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. “You mean the fucking?”

There’s a pause then, and Enjolras’ reply is sheepish when it comes. “I’m in public.”

Grantaire snorts. “So am I. You can just say it. Fucking.”

An old woman heading down the pavement in the opposite direction to Grantaire shoots him a disgusted glare, and Grantaire returns it with a cheery salute. She shakes her head, pottering off, and Grantaire laughs.

“I’m at the patisserie. There’s a queue.”

“Ah. Better not say it, then.”

“No.” He can almost hear the wry smile in Enjolras’ voice, and he stifles another laugh. “Better not.”

Grantaire shifts his phone back into his other hand and exhales. His breath makes a little white cloud, and he briefly wonders if it’ll join the air and become part of the atmosphere for all eternity, shared atoms for other men and women to breathe.

“Grantaire?” comes Enjolras’ voice, and Grantaire snaps back into reality.

“Yes, sorry.”

“You were having deep existential thoughts again, weren’t you?” Enjolras sounds amused, and Grantaire finds himself flushing. A woman smoking a cigarette on the front steps of her house catches his eye and smiles.

“The deepest,” he admits.

Enjolras laughs, and his voice sounds warm. “I’ll leave you to your ruminations, then,” he says. “I’m going to buy some macarons for Combeferre. I thought it might go some way towards thanking him for his work on the rally last month.”

“Don’t give any to Bahorel,” Grantaire returns absent-mindedly, and then thinks about the conversation they’ve just had; about how calm Enjolras sounds, and how happy. “You sound good,” he adds.

There’s a short pause, and Grantaire wonders if he’s overstepped the mark by talking about something that Enjolras doesn’t really want to discuss, but then he hears a small breath of what sounds like surprised laughter, and Enjolras is there.

“I feel good,” he says.

These words are all that Grantaire wants to hear, and he decides to push his luck by asking for clarification, so he knows that he’s allowed to rejoice in this. “Really?”

“Really,” affirms Enjolras. There’s a sigh then, and Enjolras says something indeterminable, his hand over the mouthpiece to muffle his speech. When he comes back, he sounds rueful. “I have to go,” he says. “They’re trying to ask me what colour I want, as though it really matters. I’ll see you later. Love you.”

“Love you,” says Grantaire, and Enjolras hangs up.

He can remember a time not so long ago when saying _I love you_ to Enjolras felt like he was desecrating something beautiful, like his very love could scratch scars into marble and tear wounds into silk. It doesn’t feel like that any more. It feels sacred, almost, something that shouldn’t really be said on a bustling street on the outskirts of Paris. But then Grantaire has never been one for consecration, and he’s never been one to hide how he feels.

He wonders when he first started to think that he deserves to let Enjolras know that he loves him, and he thinks they’re both very glad that he did.

* * *

He finishes his shift on Wednesday and goes straight to Jehan’s house. They have a lot to discuss regarding their project, and they tend to meet twice a week, although this is already the third time that Grantaire has seen Jehan since Sunday. They’re on something of a roll with their latest piece, and neither of them wants to interrupt the creative process any more than their other commitments already have. They're working on their fourth already, and Grantaire is confident that they’ll have a complete exhibition ready to polish by June

They’re sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of Jehan’s living room, papers and canvases spread about the place so that not even an inch of carpet is visible, when Jehan puts down the pen they’ve been chewing for the past half hour and beams.

“I think I’ve finished this one,” they say, tucking behind their ear a strand of hair that’s escaped from their braid. They’ve braided it with ribbons, Grantaire is amused and unsurprised to see, and the green and blue strands run through their red hair like thin rivers of contrasting colours. From a distance, Grantaire thinks, Jehan could be mistaken for a painter rather than a poet. At least until the scribbled notes and nonsensical half lines of prose became noticeable, black and stark in ink against the paper white skin of Jehan’s arm.

Grantaire finishes sketching the last faint line on his canvas and sets his pencil down gently, at a perfect right angle to the drawing. It’s far from finished, he knows, but he has a good idea of where he’s going with it. Based on a haiku of Jehan’s that includes the line ‘ _fall like tarnished butterflies_ ’, he’s sketched a detailed autumn scene. He’ll find a way of making it more interesting when he comes to the colouring. That’s his favourite part, anyway.

“OK,” says Grantaire. “Can I read it?”

Jehan bites the tip of their pen again, running their eyes over their sheet of paper. Grantaire can see the main body of the poem in the middle, with the snaking arms of Jehan’s notes reaching out from the centre like winter branches. Grantaire thinks he reads the words _ashes and embers_ , but he’s not sure. Jehan’s writing is terrible, like black spiders on snow.

Jehan taps the pen twice on the corner of the paper, then looks up at Grantaire. “No,” they say. “I don’t think you’re ready to see it yet.”

Grantaire narrows his eyes. “Why not?”

Jehan shrugs. “I don’t know, really. I just have a feeling that it’s not the right time.” They meet Grantaire’s eye apologetically. “I’m always right about these things, you know.”

Grantaire remembers when Jehan had presented a portfolio of poems to Cosette and Marius at a meeting last March, with the cryptic message that they’d known this day would come. Marius and Cosette had opened the portfolio and gasped at each poem; sonnets and ballads, tanka and free verse, all about the dawn of new romances and the fear of losing old ones. Jehan had written them over a year previously. No-one else had known that Marius and Cosette were dating.

Grantaire sighs dramatically. “Then I suppose I’ll wait. I’m sure it’s good, though.”

Jehan beams. “It is. I’m excited for you to see it.” They fold the piece of paper over so that Grantaire can’t pry any more, and fold their arms in their lap. “I can give you something else, though.”

Grantaire snorts. “I know what your idea of a present is, and thanks, but no thanks.”

Jehan pouts. “You loved the snow globe I bought for your birthday!”

“It had a photograph of a sarcastic camel in it,” Grantaire points out. “I’ve never shown any particular predilection for camels before, sarcastic or otherwise.”

“Well, pardon me for trying to culture you,” sniffs Jehan, and they reach behind them and tug on their braid, pulling at the strand of green ribbon. It falls free from the braid easily, slipping out like a thoughtless word, and Grantaire wonders how it had managed to stay in Jehan’s hair all day. Jehan holds out their hand and solemnly presents the ribbon to Grantaire.

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. “Why are you giving me a ribbon from your hair?” he asks.

“Because it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Jehan, you know I’m very happy with Enjolras - ”

Jehan raises their other hand, cutting Grantaire off, and shudders. “Don’t even finish that sentence. I love you, Grantaire, but giving you a Valentine’s gift would be like sending condoms to my mother. No, this is for you, because I know that Enjolras likes green on you. It’s a good colour for you.”

Grantaire blinks. “My hair isn’t long enough to wear it,” he states, pointing at his mess of short dark curls.

“Firstly, any hair is braidable with the right amount of patience and skill,” Jehan says dismissively, “and secondly, you are not going to wear it in your hair. Give me your wrist.”

Wordlessly, Grantaire does so, feeling as though he’s been shifted into a parallel universe where this sort of thing makes sense. Jehan ties the ribbon around his wrist, finishing it with an elegant bow, and grins triumphantly, looking up at Grantaire.

“There,” they say. “Now you are dashing and prepared for your date with Enjolras tonight. Are you going anywhere special?”

Grantaire shakes his head. “Not really our scene,” he replies. “Enjolras thinks that Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, invented by the capitalist hegemony to sell cards to the placid masses, and I’m just too lazy to do anything for it.”

“How romantic,” Jehan states flatly.

Grantaire shrugs. “It works for us,” he says. “And hey, I’m in a committed relationship. I’m pretty much guaranteed to get laid tonight, unlike some people.”

Jehan raises an eyebrow. “I have my own plans for tonight, you know,” they say, “involving an array of foodstuffs, some hot and heavy consensual sex, and Courf – ”

“As glad as I am that you’ve both got your shit together, if you finish that sentence, I will end you.” Grantaire shudders at the image, then sighs, checking his watch. “I’d better be off. I told Enjolras I’d be back before dark.”

“All right,” Jehan acquiesces, getting to their knees and helping Grantaire up. Jehan sees him to the front door and opens it, leaning against the frame as Grantaire stands on the step to tie his scarf. “Tell Enjolras I said ‘hello, you divine, gorgeous man’. Those words exactly. Nothing else will do.”

“I tell him that every day,” Grantaire says, mock serious, and flashes Jehan a grin. “Tell Courfeyrac that I hid a box of condoms in your spice rack last week. He’ll need them.”

“I would, but he might get jealous.” Jehan salutes Grantaire, and goes inside. “Goodbye!”

“See you,” calls Grantaire, making his way down the steps.

It’s bitterly cold, the weather well rooted in freezing February tradition, and Grantaire finds himself shivering all the way back to his apartment, even though it’s a walk of ten blocks.

On his way home, he passes a small bookshop, and smiles reflexively. It’s closing down now, and he’s half disappointed that it’s past 5pm and he can’t go in. He remembers when he had first visited it as a second year art student just trying to get out of the torrential rain, and had immediately fallen in love with the Classics section at the back of the shop. It was warm in the way that only bookshops ever really are, with the smoky smell of old books and dust, and he’d spent an hour sitting in an old dining room chair with a book of Greek mythology spread across his lap.

He’d brought that book to Enjolras’ meeting that evening, and the stunned look on Enjolras’ face had been worth the 6€ he’d spent on it. The book is on the bookcase in their living room now, and Grantaire knows that Enjolras reads it sometimes when he can’t sleep.

When he finally arrives at the warmth of his apartment building, the first thing he smells is smoke. He sighs. Mme Baudelaire in 24B has a rude son who comes to cook for her in the evenings, and the building more often smells of burning than not. Shrugging off his coat, he heads up the metal staircase towards his apartment, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He’s half tempted to call the fire brigade in the hope that they’ll ban Mme Baudelaire from having any culinarily impaired visitors. He reaches his apartment on the fourth floor feeling slightly out of breath, and he wonders if he can sue the Baudelaires for smoke inhalation. He doubts it.

He turns the handle of his front door and closes his eyes. It’s been a long day.

“I’m back! Are you – Jesus, mother of Mary, is that a _barricade_?”

He blinks, certain that he’s hallucinating, or has walked into the wrong flat. On the breakfast bar that separates the kitchen from the living area, there is a mountainous heap of kitchen utensils; all their frying pans and saucepans are piled high, precariously leaning at dangerous angles, and their cutlery and crockery is balanced in between the cracks. The pile is a good half a metre high, and Grantaire could have sworn that they didn’t own this much shit.

From behind the heap, Enjolras’ head pokes out.

“Oh,” says Enjolras, frowning slightly, and he looks at the pile disinterestedly. “No. It’s the washing up.”

“The washing up,” says Grantaire monotonously, and he blinks heavily again. “Of course it is. Why is it there, and why is there so much of it?”

Enjolras huffs, blowing a loose strand of blond hair out of his face, and fixes Grantaire with a patient look. “Well,” he begins. “I was going to cook something for you, seeing as it’s Valentine’s Day and we didn’t have any other plans, and I got out one of the frying pans and I saw that it wasn’t clean. There was something stuck to it.” He frowns. “I think it was egg.”

“You were going to cook?” Grantaire says, because Enjolras doesn’t cook. He can’t. There are two things that Enjolras is genuinely terrible at, and those are poetry and cooking. Grantaire thinks he might even be worse at cooking than he is at poetry, and he once tried to rhyme ‘revolutionary’ with ‘how things might be’.

Enjolras nods. “Pasta,” he says.

“Why did you need the frying pan to make pasta?” Grantaire asks. He can feel a headache coming on, right between his eyes.

Enjolras frowns. “Don’t you need a frying pan to cook pasta?”

“Not if you want to eat it,” Grantaire sighs. He rubs the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and thinks about the whisky in the top drawer under the sink. “Anyway, why did the discovery of the dirty frying pan lead to the piece of modern art on our breakfast bar?”

“It’s more of an island than a breakfast bar,” muses Enjolras, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

Grantaire can feel something curling in his gut. He feels like he’s still in the strange universe he entered at Jehan’s, where everything looks the same but nothing quite makes sense, and he doesn’t like it. Enjolras is never unfocused and he doesn’t cook. But then Enjolras doesn’t sleep until 11am and take 20mg tablets either, so they’re already treading new ground. Perhaps this is a side effect.

“The washing up,” Grantaire reminds him.

“Oh,” says Enjolras. “I just thought that I might as well wash everything, seeing as I was already washing the frying pan.”

“Everything?”

“Well, yes.” Enjolras looks at him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Noticing Grantaire’s carefully concerned look, he sighs. “It’s done now. We should probably go out to eat. We don’t have any pasta anyway.”

Grantaire nods slowly. “So, we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day this year?”

“Why not?” says Enjolras.

“Because you think it’s a gross exaggeration of capitalistic values in a society that values money over true displays of emotion,” points out Grantaire.

“Fair point,” says Enjolras. “But I want to go out.”

Grantaire blinks. “Have I fallen into another dimension?” he asks himself aloud. “Another realm where my boyfriend builds a fortress out of kitchenware and wants to go out on Valentine’s Day?”

“I can go out by myself if you don’t want to come,” says Enjolras, folding his arms.

Grantaire scoffs. “On Valentine’s Day? Not likely. You’ll get hit on by all the lonely singletons in the bar, and you’ll come home two hours later filled with nothing but overpriced lemonade and a sense of disenchantment at your own physical beauty.” He picks up his coat from the floor. “If you’re going out, then I’m coming with.”

Enjolras doesn’t so much as blink. “Fine.”

“Fine,” returns Grantaire.

“The Musain?” suggests Enjolras, unfolding his arms and turning to go into the bedroom.

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “You old romantic.”

* * *

They get to the Musain within the hour, after Enjolras has considered three different jackets in slightly varying shades of red and finally settled on a blue one. Grantaire isn’t surprised to find Éponine already there, sitting at the bar with Combeferre and Bahorel, drinking rather expensive rum and ruminating about the likelihood of Marius and Cosette getting out of bed for long enough to join them.

They settle on ‘unlikely’.

“You lovebirds decided to descend from Mount Olympus on this sacred day after all?” grins Combeferre, slapping Enjolras on the back in a fashion that’s entirely too macho to suit him.

“Saint Valentine is a Roman deity,” replies Enjolras haughtily, and Combeferre pulls a face. “Mount Olympus is Greek.” He turns to the bartender. “I’ll have whatever they’re having.”

“It’s strong stuff,” warns Éponine, shooting Grantaire a confused look. Grantaire just shrugs back at her. He’s as perplexed as she is.

Enjolras raises his eyebrows. “I can handle it,” he says defensively, and Éponine throws up her hands in mock surrender.

“Didn’t say you couldn’t, champ,” she says, and Grantaire exhales heavily. He thinks he preferred it when Enjolras thought Valentine’s Day was too marred by capitalism to be worth celebrating. It was certainly less stressful.

“What are you drinking, Grantaire?” asks Bahorel, putting his hand companionably on Grantaire’s shoulder.

“Just coke for me,” he says, mouth suddenly dry.

Éponine frowns. “You having rum with that?”

Grantaire shakes his head. “Not today.” He smiles weakly, and gestures towards Enjolras, who has already knocked back his first glass and is halfway through ordering another. “One of us has to stay sober enough to open the front door. It’s a really fiddly lock. You have to twist the key just right.”

Bahorel nods and turns to order Grantaire’s drink, and Éponine places her hand on the crook of Grantaire’s arm, her face furrowed with concern.

“Are you all right?” she asks quietly, and Grantaire nods. He’s being asked that a lot lately. He wonders if they know that they’re asking the wrong person.

“Fine,” he replies tersely.

She bites her lip, and Grantaire knows that something is coming. He steels himself.

“Enjolras is acting a bit strangely, don’t you think?” she says.

Grantaire makes no movement. “He’s just trying to unwind,” he replies. “He’s been busy lately.”

Éponine scoffs. “He’s always busy,” she says dismissively. “It doesn’t usually drive him to the bottle.”

“He’s allowed a night out, isn’t he?” Grantaire is aware that he sounds more defensive than he intended, but he’s getting fed up of being questioned. Everyone he meets seems to want to ask him something else, and it’s never something he wants to answer.

Éponine purses her lips, and tightens her grip on his arm. “Honey, he’s allowed all the nights out that he wants. It’s just that he’s never wanted them before.”

“Well, everyone’s allowed to change their mind every once in a while,” he says.

Éponine looks like she’s about to say something else when Bahorel comes over again and shoves a glass into Grantaire’s hands. Grantaire raises it to his nose gingerly, and Bahorel laughs, a loud, raucous thing that makes Éponine jump.

“I haven’t spiked it, you know,” he says, and Grantaire flushes.

“I know,” he lies, because he’s never pretended not to have trust issues. “Force of habit, that’s all.”

“Well, you know, if you were slightly prettier,” says Bahorel, and Éponine and Grantaire both shove him harshly at the same time. He laughs again, raising his hands. “Hey, I’m joking!”

“It’s hardly a laughing subject,” says Combeferre, his tone disapproving, and Bahorel sighs.

“Sorry,” he says. “Been hanging out with the security guys too much, I think. They’ve got to me.”

“Well, see that you get them off you.” Combeferre raises an eyebrow, and Bahorel whimpers. Grantaire can’t stifle a grin at the sight of Bahorel, a two-time bare fist boxing champion, cowering from a man dressed in corduroy. “You know we won’t tolerate that.”

Grantaire decides to lighten the mood then – after all, they’re here to celebrate love, not war – and he does a little impression of Bahorel, raising his hands and imitating Bahorel’s usual deceptively stoic expression, and Éponine bursts into hysterics. From the bar, Enjolras starts to grin, and then his grin dissipates and becomes something else entirely, something raw and careless, and he gets down off the bar stool and steps over to Grantaire. He takes Grantaire’s wrist in his hand and pulls up Grantaire’s sleeve, exposing the green ribbon that Jehan had tied there earlier. Grantaire had completely forgotten it was there.

“Jehan,” he says, by way of explanation.

Éponine and Bahorel nod understandingly, but Enjolras raises his head and meets Grantaire’s eye with a look of suspicion. Grantaire’s pulse begins to quicken, and he wonders if Enjolras can feel it where he’s still holding his wrist.

“Why did they do that?” asks Enjolras, and Grantaire shrugs, a nervous laugh escaping him.

“Why did they tie a random bit of green ribbon around my wrist?” he says, aware that he’s gabbling but powerless to stop it. “I don’t know; because it’s Jehan and they do that sort of shit?”

“Enjolras,” says Combeferre warningly from behind the group.

Enjolras ignores him. “Green is a good colour on you,” he says.

“That’s exactly what Jehan said,” responds Grantaire. He knows he’s said exactly the wrong thing immediately. Enjolras’ face darkens, something akin to anger crossing his alcohol-flushed features, and he drops Grantaire’s wrist.

“I bet it is,” he says, and Grantaire can hear Éponine swear under her breath.

“Enjolras – ” says Grantaire.

Enjolras holds up his hand, effectively silencing Grantaire, and turns back to the bar.

Grantaire looks around himself, unsure as to what just happened. He knows that he’s been accused of something, although for the life of him, he’s not sure what. Enjolras knows about his collaboration with Jehan. He’d encouraged it from the moment Grantaire first mentioned it. He’s sat for hours with Grantaire, talking about ideas and laughing at some of the worse ones, and when he was too tired to get up, he would still occasionally call out suggestions to the living room where Grantaire was working.

So it makes no sense, not one iota, that Enjolras should be jealous now.

Grantaire looks at Combeferre helplessly, wondering if it’s obvious that his heart is beating twice as fast as normal, and Combeferre sighs. He rests a hand briefly on Grantaire’s shoulder and then thinks better of it, looking behind him to check that the gesture wasn’t seen.

“I’ll talk to him,” he promises.

Grantaire nods. “Thank you,” he says.

Combeferre nods in return. He lingers for a second, then turns and takes the seat next to Enjolras, who is sitting with a face like thunder before a glass of what looks like beer.

Éponine sighs, and pats him on the shoulder. Bahorel shifts his weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable.

“Come on, sparrow,” says Éponine. “Let’s get you drunk.”

And they do.

When Enjolras eventually finds him several hours later, Grantaire is laughing hysterically at an awful joke that Bahorel has made. He turns his laughter off like a tap upon seeing Enjolras, and Enjolras sits at their table wordlessly, swaying slightly as he makes his way over. Grantaire doesn’t laugh much after that.

They get home late that night, when the sun has already begun its fight in the blue grey sky, and they shed their clothes like skin as soon as they get through the door. They fuck, and it makes Grantaire ache inside because despite what he likes to call it, despite the profanities that he uses to describe it when he wants to make Enjolras blush attractively, they never fuck. Not really. They have sex, sleep together, make love – but they don’t fuck.

Enjolras turns over on his side when they’re finished, and they don’t touch again.

* * *

Four days later, Grantaire is sitting in the upstairs of the Musain with Marius, Éponine and Combeferre. There’s no meeting, and they’re not expecting anyone else. Grantaire and Éponine have the day off, having persuaded Laurine and Abel to take their shifts. They’d planned to spend their time shopping for Joly’s birthday, but just as they’d left Éponine’s flat, Grantaire had received a text message from Marius calling for all his available friends to meet him at the Musain. Grantaire had been slightly bemused by the fact that Marius had considered him enough of a friend to invite him, and he hadn’t planned on turning up at all, but Éponine is incorrigible in all matters pertaining to Marius, and so they went.

Grantaire taps his fingers on the corner of the table.

“No Cosette today?” he asks.

Marius flushes. “We’re not joined at the hip.”

Grantaire, Éponine and Combeferre look at each other, and promptly burst into hysterics.

Marius pouts. “We’re not!”

“Oh my God, really?” says Grantaire incredulously. “Do you not see yourselves? You’re always together! It’s like she’s your shadow, or your reflection.”

Éponine visibly slumps, and Combeferre pushes his biscuit across the table to her. Marius doesn’t notice either gesture.

“They’re in love, Grantaire,” says Éponine, her voice thick, and Marius beams.

“See, Grantaire? Éponine understands!”

Éponine unwraps Combeferre’s biscuit and bites into it, her face surly.

Marius takes the spoon out of his coffee cup, and grins at Grantaire. “Anyway, what about you and Enjolras? You’re always together, too. You can’t talk!”

Grantaire feels his face grow red, and he looks down at his coffee. “Yeah,” he says quickly. “I suppose. He’s in class at the moment though, so, you know.”

He looks back up at the others. Combeferre is eyeing him strangely. Éponine is too busy trying not to look at Marius, who is swirling the milk in his coffee with his teaspoon and watching it intently.

Combeferre stands up. “I’m going to get a cup of Earl Grey,” he says, and gestures towards Grantaire. “Come with me?”

Grantaire is well aware that it’s not really a question, and so he nods. Éponine looks at him desperately, presumably unwilling to be left alone with Marius, but Grantaire shakes his head and she slumps again, folding her arms and staring sullenly at her cappuccino.

When they reach the staircase, Combeferre pulls him aside. He looks wary, and Grantaire wonders what he’s suspicious of. Grantaire is used to people being suspicious of him, but he doesn’t know what he’s done to merit it this time.

Combeferre clears his throat, and Grantaire steels himself.

“Is something wrong with Enjolras?” asks Combeferre.

Grantaire swallows. “I don’t know,” he says.

It’s not a lie. He could tell Combeferre about the pills, but then he’d have to tell him about how he was fine last week, until he wasn’t. He doesn’t know how to articulate what’s wrong, or even whether there _is_ anything wrong. Can there be something wrong when it’s sometimes right?

Combeferre shuffles his feet, and someone passes them on the stairs. Grantaire wishes they were somewhere more private.

“I know about the anti-depressants,” says Combeferre after a few moments.

Grantaire balks. “What.”

“He told me last week. He said that you knew.”

“I do know,” Grantaire returns, slightly defensive. “I just didn’t know that you did.”

“Enjolras is my best friend,” says Combeferre, eyebrow raised. “Frankly, I’m surprised it took him this long to tell me.” He purses his lips. “You should have told me.”

Grantaire folds his arms and meets Combeferre’s gaze squarely. “Why?” he asks. “Because you’re his best friend? Because you deserved to know?”

“No,” says Combeferre, placing his hands on Grantaire’s shoulders. “Because you don’t deserve to be alone in this.”

“I’m not alone,” argues Grantaire, shaking himself free. “I have Enjolras.”

Combeferre sighs. “Grantaire,” he says. His voice sounds tired. “You don’t have to fight me on this. I’m not trying to usurp you, or step in where I’m not wanted. I promise. I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” hisses Grantaire. And he doesn’t. Hasn’t he managed perfectly well by himself for his whole life? He has Enjolras. That’s enough. It’s more than he deserves.

Combeferre exhales slowly. “If you change your mind, then I’ll still be here.”

“I won’t.”

Combeferre scratches the back of his neck, and it’s clear that he wants to say something else, but isn’t sure how Grantaire will take it.

Grantaire sighs. Whatever it is, it’s not as though it can be worse than anything else he’s heard recently. He just wants to go home. The morning has turned sour, and he thinks that only Enjolras can make it otherwise.

“Spit it out,” Grantaire tells him.

Combeferre purses his lips again. “This won’t go away,” he says finally. “I know you’re probably thinking right now that it’s just a case of waiting it out, but it’s not. It’s more a case of adapting. Things aren’t going to be the same. Maybe not ever. Do you know that?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grantaire tells him.

Combeferre looks soft around the edges, Grantaire thinks, and he wonders why he doesn’t look angry. Combeferre never looks angry. Not like Enjolras. He wonders if that’s why Enjolras gets on with Combeferre in ways he doesn’t with Grantaire. Enjolras and Grantaire are different in all the ways that matter, and the same in all of the rest. He thinks that Combeferre and Enjolras might be just the opposite.

“Did I ever tell you about my mother?” asks Combeferre.

Grantaire scoffs. “Why would you tell me about your mother?”

Combeferre looks at him imploringly, and Grantaire resolves to listen. It feels like he’s being told a secret, and he ought at least to try to hear it.

“My mother was schizophrenic.”

“Enjolras isn’t schizophrenic.”

“I know that, Grantaire. I know. But she was ill, for a long time.” He rubs his left elbow absent-mindedly, and drops eye contact with Grantaire. “At the time, it was like it happened overnight. One day she was my mother, and the next she was someone else.” He looks at Grantaire again, and Grantaire swallows hard. “But when I look back at it, it wasn’t overnight at all. There were signs. There were always signs. One month, she painted our kitchen red for no reason at all. She spent so much time planning it, getting the best painters and builders, that it seemed totally unfeasible that it was a symptom. She seemed so normal doing it. But it wasn’t normal, was it? Painting an entire room red and not explaining why.” He huffs a small, bitter laugh. “It turned out that she painted it to block the ultraviolet rays.”

The look he gives Grantaire is half fond, half devastated, and it feels both like a warning and a consolation.

“I’m sorry,” mutters Grantaire. There’s nothing else to say.

Combeferre shrugs. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “There was nothing to be done. We didn’t know. How were we supposed to know what we were looking out for? We didn’t know she was ill until it was too late.”

“What happened to her?” Grantaire asks, hoping that he’s not crossing into unwelcome territory.

“She was hospitalised a few months later,” Combeferre answers. His voice is carefully blank, not betraying anything, but his hand is trembling on his arm. “And then the inevitable, I suppose. She didn’t want to be helped. She was lost, really, somewhere up here.” He taps his temple. “And I do think sometimes that we might have found her again if she’d let us in. But she didn’t, and we lost her. It’s been seven years now, nearly eight.”

He shrugs again, and Grantaire sees his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. He feels like he’s been bruised. Combeferre has been carrying this weight with him for years. He’s been pulled down with the sadness of what’s happened to him, and yet he’s still offering to help hold Grantaire up. Suddenly, Grantaire can see why Enjolras values him so highly. He’s only sad that he’s been blind to it before. He feels a dull sense of empathy at Combeferre’s plight, but he can’t hope to share it, because no matter how similar their situations might be at the root, they have grown into very different things.

“I’m really sorry,” he says.

“Yes, well,” says Combeferre, pulling himself up and smiling sadly. “You didn’t know. No-one does, except Enjolras. And you, now. I know why you didn’t tell me about Enjolras, because I didn’t tell anyone about my mother. But this is different. We know Enjolras. We love him, perhaps as much as you do, in our own ways. We want to help. We can help.”

“I don’t think Enjolras wants help,” says Grantaire. “He has the pills.”

“My mother had her pills too. It might not be enough.”

“If it’s not, then he knows we’re here.” He emphasises the ‘we’ to show willing; to prove to Combeferre that he’s listened, that he knows that he’s not alone, and Combeferre picks up on it, smiling almost imperceptibly before grimacing.

“He does now. I hope he still will if he needs us later,” he muses.

“He will,” says Grantaire, and he wishes that he felt as sure as he sounded. “He will.”

Combeferre sighs. “Well, you know him best,” he says, and gestures back up the staircase. “The others will be wondering where we’ve got to. Shall we?”

“After you,” says Grantaire, and he follows Combeferre back up to where Marius and Éponine are sitting.

When they reach them, Éponine is sitting with her legs crossed and resting up on the table, looking very smug indeed. Marius looks as though he has seen death, and found it personally insulting.

“What have you been doing?” asks Grantaire.

Éponine grins wickedly. “Giving Marius the best advice of his life,” she responds.

“I hope not,” Marius mutters, and Éponine kicks her feet and shrieks with laughter.

She is wild, thinks Grantaire. Almost feral. He knows why she’s never got on with Enjolras.

Éponine eyes Combeferre, and her eyes narrow as he slips himself back into the seat next to her.

“Where’s your tea?” she asks.

“They were all out,” he replies smoothly, and meets Grantaire’s eye.

Grantaire nods. “It took them long enough to find out,” he adds. “Thought we’d be there all night.”

Éponine doesn’t stop looking at them suspiciously all afternoon, but they solve Marius’s problem by telling him that no, Cosette won’t be angry that he forgot her father’s birthday. Grantaire wonders what it must be like for Marius, being so sure and solid with Cosette, and he finds himself ruminating about what might happen if Cosette were to be changed overnight, like Enjolras. If Cosette had to take 20mg of some long-named chemical to get out of bed, and ended up building barricades of kitchen utensils, Grantaire thinks that Marius would just accept it, take it completely in his stride, and carry on as normal.

The thought makes him sad, for some reason that he can’t quite discern.

* * *

Grantaire phones Jehan ten minutes before their scheduled visit that Thursday to cancel it. He knows that Bahorel has told Jehan what happened with the green ribbon at the Musain, and he supposes that this is why Jehan doesn’t question it; just asks Grantaire when he’ll be ready to meet them again.

Grantaire shrugs, even though he knows Jehan can’t hear it down the phone, and mumbles something about finishing the colouring of some paintings. After a few moments, Jehan sighs and agrees to meet next week. They sound curt when they bid Grantaire goodbye, hanging up before Grantaire can return the sentiment, and Grantaire doesn’t paint at all that day.

* * *

Combeferre corners Grantaire as soon as the meeting is over. Grantaire spots the worried look on his face before he even says anything. He has a right to be worried.

The meeting had gone relatively smoothly at first. Enjolras talked for a few minutes about the issue of choosing a venue for their next fundraiser, before opening the forum for discussion. Bahorel bashfully admitted that his old group of friends had got arrested again on charges pertaining to violent conduct at an event for which they’d done the security, but informed them all that, since they’d no longer be able to use it for boxing practise, his local community centre had a free hall which would be relatively cheap to hire. Everyone agreed that this was a suitable idea, and Bossuet and Joly added that Musichetta would probably let them hire out the entire Musain if the community centre fell through. They’d implied that they’d be able to find means to persuade her, and Éponine had pretended to gag. It had all been jovial and friendly.

Then, Marius had mentioned that he and Cosette were taking a holiday and might be unable to attend the next meeting, and things had crumbled rather quickly. Enjolras’ eyes had flashed with barely concealed anger before he accused Marius of being undedicated and not serious enough about the group. He’d followed the accusation with insults about the actions of Marius’ father and slights on Marius’ relationship with Cosette, and everyone had watched as Marius turned pale and started shaking. Cosette had leapt to her boyfriend’s defence, quickly backed up by Éponine, and things had fast descended into a row. Only Musichetta’s tactful entrance with a free bottle of wine had calmed things down.

Enjolras values debate more highly than he values most things, and resorting to petty insults and retorts is against all the rules in his book. Grantaire has seen him face down an enraged mob, full of drunken men with stinging tongues and homophobic barbs, and he saw Enjolras win that fight with nothing but facts and rhetoric. Marius has borne the brunt of something that no-one but Grantaire in his darkest moments has ever borne before; the full force of Enjolras’ cruel tongue, made sharp by rage, and yet dulled by it too; turned from weapon into wound, from instrument to false note.

Now, everyone has left – Cosette is having a whispered conversation with Éponine out by the staircase, and Enjolras is downstairs talking with Musichetta, Bossuet and Jehan about hiring out the Musain - and Combeferre is approaching Grantaire with a concerned expression.

Grantaire swallows, holding his glass of wine to calm him. He hasn’t drunk any of it – yet – but the smell is anchoring, familiar. “I know,” he says quietly, as Combeferre stands a few feet away and rubs the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“It’s getting worse,” warns Combeferre. “We need to do something.”

Grantaire swills the wine around in the glass and watches it still itself. “He’s taking the pills. What else can we do?”

“I don’t know, Grantaire. I’m not an expert. But we can’t just sit back and watch it get worse.”

“It might get better.”

“It won’t.”

The wine is suddenly unappealing; it both looks and seems to smell like blood, and Grantaire sets the glass down on the table near him. “I’ll handle it,” he says. Combeferre raises an eyebrow, and Grantaire frowns. “I will. Just give me more time.”

“There might not be much more.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“I know the signs!” Combeferre hisses, his calm façade shattering at Grantaire’s denial. He clenches his fists and breathes in harshly, then releases the breath and spreads his fingers, steepling them under his chin. “You can’t ignore this.”

“And I won’t,” insists Grantaire. “I won’t.”

Combeferre looks at him sadly, but nods resignedly and walks away. Grantaire lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

When he gets downstairs, Enjolras grabs him and excitedly tells him that he’s booked the Musain for the fundraiser, before kissing him full on the mouth in front of everyone. As Enjolras is not usually one for public displays of affection, Grantaire flushes red, and Enjolras laughs. His kiss tasted like red wine.

They make love that evening. Grantaire kisses Enjolras and calls him Apollo, and Enjolras looks at him disapprovingly, although the effect is rather diminished by the fact that he’s blushing.

After they’ve lain in bed for an hour, arguing good-naturedly about the prospect of queer representation in politics – this is practically foreplay to Enjolras, and Grantaire would be lying if he said that he wasn’t hoping it might lead to more sex – Enjolras gets up, smiling apologetically. He says he has work to do regarding the fundraiser, and Grantaire shrugs and wishes him luck.

Not that Enjolras ever needs luck, of course, but Grantaire reasons that it can’t hurt.

* * *

The next morning, Grantaire wakes up early; long before the sun has had a chance to claim the sky. The bed is cold and empty, and Grantaire thinks how strange it is that this is reassuring. It’s a good thing, because it means that Enjolras is awake.

Yawning and stretching, he decides that there’s no point in trying to go back to sleep. He’s not used to sleeping in a bed by himself any more. He’s spoilt in that respect, he supposes.

Fumbling for the door handle, he stumbles out of the bedroom and into the living room. Enjolras is sitting on the sofa, a pile of papers in front of him and a pen in his hand. He’s wearing glasses, Grantaire notices with a fond smile, which means that he’s been working for some time and his eyes have grown tired.

It’s not his healthiest habit, for several reasons: firstly, it proves what Grantaire has always believed, and that is the fact that Enjolras prioritises his work over all other things that should be prioritised, such as food, wine and sex; secondly, Enjolras should rightly wear his glasses all the time, but believes that they make him look foolish, so he doesn’t. Of course, Grantaire doesn’t think they make him look foolish at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most people agree with Grantaire, if the increase in romantic propositions that Enjolras receives when he’s wearing his glasses is anything to go by, but Enjolras will not be swayed, and so Grantaire settles for carrying an old pair of Enjolras’ reading glasses in his bag, along with a bottle of aspirin (which Enjolras will always refuse to take), just in case.

On hearing Grantaire come in, Enjolras looks up from his stack of papers and beams. It warms something in Grantaire, and he feels himself flush. The full force of one of Enjolras’ rare, unguarded smiles is something to behold, especially at 7 in the morning.

“Is it morning already?” asks Enjolras, turning back to his work and shuffling the papers. “I thought it was earlier than that.”

Grantaire manages a wry smile. “Earlier than morning?” he asks. “What’s earlier than morning?”

Enjolras shrugs. “Yesterday.”

“You thought it was yesterday?”

“Well. It might’ve been.” Enjolras looks at Grantaire again. “I started work on this yesterday.”

Grantaire frowns. “And you got up early to finish it?”

Enjolras blinks, as though Grantaire is missing the most obvious thing in the world. “No, I stayed up all night.” He shrugs. “It needed finishing.”

The clock on the far wall suddenly seems too loud for the small space.

“Don’t you feel tired?” Grantaire questions.

Enjolras shrugs again. “Not particularly.” He beams again, but it doesn’t warm Grantaire this time; it chills him beyond the membrane, somewhere deep but not quite to the bone. “It’s a good thing, Grantaire! I feel better. I’ve finished two speeches, planned the next four rallies – and I don’t feel tired. Aren’t you pleased? I think they worked, the pills. Maybe I won’t need to take them for much longer.”

He sounds so hopeful that Grantaire almost feels guilty at how the suggestion makes something dark and scared flare in him.

“Are you still taking them?” Grantaire asks carefully.

Enjolras is still smiling, so wide and open that it actually makes something ache in Grantaire; that he can be so innocent and naive about this, as though it’s just a passing cloud, and not the hurricane that it really is. 

“Yes,” answers Enjolras. “That’s why I feel better!” He gestures down at himself and grins again. “I’m happy, Grantaire. Or at least I think that’s what I am.”

“Maybe,” says Grantaire dully.

He’s seen happiness on the face of Enjolras before. Enjolras wears happiness carefully, all guarded smiles and secretive laughter, and it’s nothing like this. Now, he is resplendent in it; dripping with it, overflowing with a grotesque parody of what a desperate man might imagine happiness should be.

Grantaire shudders, and Enjolras tilts his head in confusion. That’s a new look, too. Enjolras doesn’t usually ascribe it to himself. He doesn’t need to, because Enjolras understands most things, and he knows the right questions to ask to work around the things he doesn’t.

“What’s wrong?” asks Enjolras.

Grantaire shakes his head, taking care to keep his expression neutral and not to show any of his fear. “Nothing,” he replies. “I’m just tired.”

Enjolras nods. “I was tired once,” he says. “For months, all at once. You should go back to sleep. That helped sometimes.”

“Yeah,” says Grantaire. “Are you coming to bed?”

Enjolras shakes his head. “No, no. I couldn’t sleep if I tried. Anyway, there’s so many things to do! There’s speeches to write, pamphlets to plan – no, you go to bed without me, and I’ll come if I get tired.”

The ‘if’ doesn’t slip past Grantaire, and he bristles. He wonders if everything is opposite today; if Enjolras has slept so much in the past two months that now he won’t sleep at all. It seems entirely possible, unlike almost of all Enjolras’s recent actions. The boundaries between the possible and impossible are blurred now. He doesn’t know what to expect, and he doesn’t know how he should feel about it, or how he _does_ feel about it. He thinks he’s confused more than anything, but there’s a looming sense of grief there too. It’s like he’s lost something important, but he can’t quite place what it is. It might be Enjolras, but Enjolras is still here, isn’t he? He’s here, sitting on their sofa, his hair pulled back in an untidy bun, wearing his biggest jumper to keep him warm in their dingy flat. He looks the same. But he isn’t, is he?

Grantaire looks at him. Enjolras has turned his attention away from Grantaire and back to his work, and Grantaire thinks he might be holding himself differently now. He seems more alert, almost too acutely so, and his spine is rigid. It’s as though he’s been changed right down to his bones, his marrow poisoned and drained, leaving his skeleton hollow and ready to be filled with whatever it is that’s made Enjolras different.

He thinks about Combeferre and his mother, about how she was normal until she wasn’t, and the bitter taste on his tongue grows stronger. It tastes like blood; the thought that perhaps Combeferre’s words weren’t so much a warning as a premonition.

And then he looks harder at Enjolras, at the fine bones of his wrist where he is sensitive to touches and kisses; at the curve at the nape of his neck where he scratches when he’s concentrating; at the length of his eyelashes which he blinks rapidly after periods of focusing so hard that he doesn’t blink at all, and he _is_ the same. Grantaire is overreacting. Enjolras built a mountain out of crockery and accused Grantaire of something with Jehan and he didn’t sleep all night, but those are small incidents in themselves. Tiny. Insignificant, really. They argue all the time. It’s not so unusual.

He can almost believe it. He tells himself this over and over again as he lies awake in bed, the shallow light of the last morning of February saturating the bedroom in watery light. _Enjolras is here_ , he thinks, over again, the same three words over and over, and then over again, and Enjolras is here.

* * *

Éponine sighs, and throws the tea towel  which she’s using to scrub down the bar over her shoulder. “Come on,” she orders. “Spill. Something’s wrong, and you’re going to tell me what it is.”

Grantaire picks at a bit of lacquer on the bar, and shrugs. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s 11 o’clock, Grantaire,” Éponine counters. “A day can’t be sufficiently long until the post-lunchtime tedium has set in, and unless you had your lunch at the crack of dawn, then I don’t think you’re in any position to complain about it.”

“I can’t be melancholy before lunch?” Grantaire asks playfully, aiming for a diversion, but it misses the mark. Éponine simply raises an eyebrow, and Grantaire exhales heavily. “OK. Fine. I’ll tell you. But really, Ép – you have to keep this to yourself. No telling anyone else.”

Éponine looks at him a little strangely, but nods. “All right. I promise.”

“You really promise?”

She sighs. “What is this, pre-school? Yes, Grantaire, I promise. Pinky swear. Cross my heart and hope to die. I won’t tell anyone your sordid little secret.”

“It’s not sordid,” mutters Grantaire, and he takes a deep breath. “I think Enjolras is going mad.”

Éponine blinks. “Is that it?” she asks.

“What do you mean, is that it?” Grantaire says. He’d thought it was a fairly bold statement.

Éponine raises an eyebrow. “He’s always been mad. He thinks he can change the world from his laptop. He wears skinny jeans and wonders why middle-aged women love him so much. He believes that society is capable of change, despite everyone being inherently selfish and beyond repair. He’s never been sane, Grantaire.”

“I’m being serious, Ép.” 

She scoffs, and Grantaire clenches his fists.

“Well, so am I!” she says. “He’s probably just overworked. You’re always saying yourself that he goes a little manic when he’s stressed.”

He tries hard to make his voice sound measured, to seem calm and not angry, but he finds himself faltering. “It’s not that. I’ve seen him stressed, and it didn’t look like this.”

“What does this look like?” she asks, folding her arms. “Because I remember that meeting when he blew a fuse at Marius, and he definitely looked stressed to me. Cosette agreed.”

He rubs the bridge of his nose. “It’s difficult to explain.”

Grantaire doesn’t think she’ll understand. He has a hunch that, without knowing all the idiosyncrasies of Enjolras’ behaviour, Éponine won’t think the changes stark enough to merit worrying. He’s aware that on their own, Enjolras’ acts of strangeness aren’t all that strange. They’re quirks, at best. Students stay up all night all the time. Lots of people go into cleaning frenzies. Jealousy is a normal human trait, and so is anger. But these things are not normal for Enjolras. That’s the problem; Éponine doesn’t know what _is_ normal for him.

“Try me,” Éponine says.

Grantaire thinks for a moment. “Everything is a blanket,” is what he eventually says, and Éponine raises both eyebrows. Grantaire gestures for her to let him finish. “It’s like all his normal actions have been covered by it. He’s never there any more. Not physically, I mean. He hasn’t gone anywhere. But he has, because he’s acting different, and it’s strange.” At Éponine’s confused face, he adds, “Combeferre has noticed it.”

Éponine nods sagely. “There’s your answer,” she says, her voice wise.

Grantaire narrows his eyes. “What is?”

“Well, you both care about him, right?” she asks. Grantaire nods. “Well, there you go. You’re both worried about him because he’s working too much.” Grantaire opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off. “How many rallies has he planned for this year already? Five? Six?”

“Seven.”

“Seven! Why are you even questioning this? He’s clearly overworked, stressed out, and needs a break. Best course of action? Take a week off from this dump and drag him to some isolated village in Provençe, or Lille, or somewhere where he can’t actually do anything.” She pats his shoulder. “Trust me on this, Grantaire. He’s fine.”

“Yeah,” says Grantaire flatly. “OK. I’ll do that. Thanks.”

“See that you do,” she tells him warningly, and then goes to the back room to get more glasses.

Grantaire doesn’t know why he thought that she’d understand, but he’d hoped at least that she’d try. Or perhaps she is trying, and this is still all that she can come up with. He finds himself briefly wondering whether Combeferre’s mother had been busy or stressed, but cuts that line of thought completely. Enjolras is not the same as Combeferre’s mother.

But then Enjolras is not the same as himself any more, and Grantaire is beginning to wonder if there are more parallel lines to be drawn between strangers than he’d first thought.

* * *

“Does Enjolras know you’re here?” Jehan asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor and tilting their head at Grantaire curiously.

Grantaire doesn’t look up from his canvas. “Not exactly,” he tries.

“Grantaire.”

He sighs, still not meeting Jehan’s eye. “He knows I’m not there.” He wipes his mauve-stained fingertips on the old bed sheet on which he’s sitting, and draws his fingers through the squirt of saffron paint in his palette. “He doesn’t need to know where I am all the time.”

Jehan watches Grantaire press his fingers to the canvas and daub the orange-yellow onto the purple, smudging it here and there to create a dull golden hue. “That’s not why I asked,” they say. Grantaire shrugs and speckles burnt umber onto the canvas with his little finger. He’s painting autumn with his bare hands. “You know how he reacted last time you came here.”

“We talked about it,” lies Grantaire. He halts then, wipes his paint-stained fingers clean and looks at Jehan. “It’s fine. We have things to do here, and Enjolras is going through meeting plans with Combeferre. He’s not going to say anything. Now, pass me that paintbrush.”

Jehan purses their lips. “Grantaire - ”

“The finest one in the box, if you can see it. I need to do the detail on the leaves.”

“I don’t want - ”

“We’re not talking about this,” says Grantaire firmly, hoping that he’s injected a sufficient air of finality into his voice for Jehan to listen. Wordlessly, Jehan nods and roots around in Grantaire’s wooden box of art supplies, producing the brush. “Thank you,” Grantaire says tartly.

There’s silence for a few minutes, sacred and golden in a way that silence usually isn’t for Grantaire. He normally thinks of silence as something to be filled; the opportunity for a controversial comment, or the perfect opening for an argument. It’s not something to be enjoyed in itself, but for the potential it has. At this moment in time, however, he’s content to simply revel in it for what it is.

Then, Grantaire hears the sound of ink pen scratching lightly across paper, and he looks up from his work to see Jehan writing furiously. He’s half tempted to ignore his curiosity and allow the lingering silence to continue indefinitely, but he’s always been one to pry, and so he only lasts a few moments before setting his paintbrush down. “What are you writing?” he asks.

“Questions you won’t answer,” Jehan replies curtly. A section of their unbraided hair falls over their shoulder, disturbed by their movement, and they tuck it behind their ear. “You won’t let me ask them, so I thought I might as well write them down. At least that way I can say I tried.”

“Look, I can’t - ”

“I’m supposed to be your friend, Grantaire. We’re supposed to trust each other.” Jehan sets their mouth in a thin line, trying to settle their irritation before continuing. “I’ve let you see all my unfinished work and I’ve told you how I drink my tea, and in return you’ve sat on my floor and refused to tell me _anything_. How can we work together on this if you don’t trust me?”

Grantaire looks at them, imploring them to understand. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Really. It’s just that things with Enjolras... well, they’re hard at the moment.”

Jehan’s face softens almost imperceptibly, and they tilt their head slightly in interested sympathy. “Are you sure it wouldn’t help to talk about it?”

He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t do any good. It’s not the sort of thing anyone can help with.”

Jehan hums. “Did I ever tell you about how Courfeyrac and I finally got together?”

Grantaire’s lips quirk into a smile, grateful at the change of topic. “No.”

“Well,” begins Jehan, “if you must know, Enjolras sat us both down after a meeting and told us – what was it he told us? Oh yes – that our sexual tension was distracting everyone from the cause. We sorted ourselves out pretty quickly after that.”

Grantaire laughs gently. “I’ve told him before about boundaries,” he says.

“I didn’t mind,” says Jehan. “I got something excellent out of it.” They watch Grantaire for a second before carrying on. “The point I’m trying to make is that I am very, very happy right now, and it’s all thanks to Enjolras. If I can repay that in any way at all, then I would really like to do that.”

Grantaire wonders how many people Enjolras has affected in his lifetime, how many people would want to make him better just to say thank you. He’s seen the enraptured faces of the crowds at rallies and marches, and he’s listened to the people who stop Enjolras in the street just to thank him for his work. He thinks the number might be very high indeed.

He cracks. “Enjolras is ill,” he says. “And don’t ask me to tell you with what, because I don’t know, and even if I did, Enjolras wouldn’t want me to tell anyone. But he’s not well at the moment, mentally speaking, and I don’t want to make him worse.” He shrugs. “For now, the best thing you can do to help him is to not tell him that I’m here. He’s not being rational right now. He’ll assume the worst.”

Jehan bites a bit of skin from around the nail of their index finger. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” breathes Grantaire. “I know.”

“No, but Grantaire,” says Jehan. “Really, that’s... that’s shit. For someone like Enjolras, especially.”

Grantaire knows what they mean, and he sees a sort of bitter truth in it. For someone like Enjolras to lose his mind, when his mind is his greatest asset – greater than the soft curve of his cupid’s bow and the straight planes of his lithe figure, greater even than the steel in his eyes when he’s arguing and the gold in his hair when the sun is highest - losing control of his thoughts is the cruellest punishment imaginable. If a fool were to lose their mind, Grantaire thinks, then it would be sad – of course it would be sad, because a mind isn’t like a cent, shouldn’t be able to be lost at the drop of a hat – but when a genius loses their mind, then it is sacrilege. Like a painter losing his sight, or a musician losing her hearing. Enjolras has lost the most important tool of his trade, the tallest pillar of his identity, and it is a tragedy.

“I know,” he says again, not sure what else there is to say.

Jehan breathes out heavily. “I’m sorry I pushed it,” they say, “and I won’t ask any more questions if you can’t answer them. But I meant it. If there’s anything I can do, even if it’s just as small as covering for you when he asks where you are if you think that’ll keep him from worrying, then I’ll do it.”

Grantaire smiles. It feels as though a weight has been lifted. A very light one, perhaps, but it’s still progress. “Thank you,” he says, and then he has a completely unrelated thought. “About that poem you wouldn’t let me see last time – ”

“Nope,” says Jehan, looking back at their paper and scribbling a huge black cloud over their questions. “You’re still not ready.”

Grantaire flicks a bit of paint at them, and they stick their tongue out. The air between them feels lighter, and no longer weighted down by quite as much guilt, Grantaire finishes his painting long before he gets the text from Combeferre that makes him throw down his paints, heart swelling and faltering, and, ignoring Jehan’s concerned cries, rush out of Jehan’s building, fingers still smeared with all the hues of his work.

 


	2. Chapter 2

When Combeferre opens the door, Grantaire pushes through it without so much as a word of greeting. Enjolras is here. Something is wrong. He feels like his blood is thrumming in his veins, slamming in his ears, and it’s not all from the 3 mile sprint here.

“Where is he?” he asks, standing in Combeferre’s cramped living room. There’s no sign of Enjolras. He can’t have left. Combeferre would have texted to let him know. No – Combeferre wouldn’t have let him leave, because Combeferre is a stronger man than Grantaire. Grantaire turns around and fixes Combeferre with a warning glare. “Combeferre, I mean it. Is he here?”

Combeferre purses his lips, running his thumb over his chin and staring at the floor before looking up at Grantaire, something uncertain in his expression, as though he's weighing up the pros and cons of Grantaire even being here at all. “Yes. He’s here. But Grantaire – ”

“Where is he?” Grantaire repeats. “Is he in your room?”

The guilty look Combeferre gives him is answer enough. Grantaire exhales heavily and heads for the door at the end of the living room. Immediately, Combeferre seems to snap into action, moving quickly from the front door until he’s in front of Grantaire, blocking his access to the bedroom.

“Don’t go in there,” says Combeferre. “Grantaire.” His voice is measured and low, but he can’t seem to stop himself from sounding desperate, and Grantaire wonders what’s behind the door; what’s so terrible that Combeferre thinks Grantaire can’t see it, or wouldn’t want to.

Grantaire can almost feel his pulse in his veins. There’s something roaring in his ears; like white noise, or perhaps just the tension in the room made audible by its sheer strength.

He reaches out behind Combeferre, trying to grab for the door handle, but Combeferre places a firm hand on his arm and Grantaire can’t fight him off. He glares at Combeferre, who looks at him pleadingly. Let him plead, Grantaire thinks. Enjolras is behind that door.

“Fuck you, Combeferre. Fuck you for thinking you know what’s best for him.” He’s aware that he possibly sounds petulant now, but he’s too frantic to care much for how he comes across. He wonders if Enjolras can hear them, if he’s even conscious. The old Enjolras would have come out to put a stop to the situation a long time ago, but even if the Enjolras in that room is awake, the old Enjolras is not.

Combeferre tightens his grip on Grantaire’s arm, but it’s not an angry gesture. “It’s not about what’s best for him. It’s about what’s better for you. Trust me, you don’t want to see him right now. Don’t.” He inhales sharply, and when he exhales, it’s a desperate little plea, a pathetic, fractured little thing. “Please.”

“Let me _in –_ ”

He pushes harder into Combeferre’s grip and the other man’s hold on his arm buckles, falters and breaks, and Grantaire is grasping for the handle again until Combeferre’s hands are on his, holding his wrists firmly and raising them above his head, forcing Grantaire to look him in the eye. Grantaire is a few inches taller than Combeferre and he’s aware that this should look comical, but Combeferre goes to the gym twice a week and Grantaire can feel his thick fingertips dig warningly into the lean bone of Grantaire’s wrists. He’s never borne the brunt of Combeferre’s physicality before – Combeferre has always been a man of words over action, and stoic thought over words – but he is suddenly faced with what the man is capable of, no matter how unwilling he might be to exhibit his capabilities, and so he slumps, allowing Combeferre to retain his hold on his wrists and no longer making an effort to break out of it.

Combeferre sighs. “Look. Grantaire. I get why you think you have to fight me on this. Really, I do. But believe me, we’re both on the same side here. The only difference between me and you is that I’m on your side as well as his.” Grantaire snorts, and Combeferre raises an eyebrow. “I am. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m already hurt,” says Grantaire, looking pointedly at his wrists, where the skin is blooming into pinkish red. “It’s a real tragedy. Let me see Enjolras.”

“I can’t.”

“He’s just in there!”

“In a sense – ”

“Combeferre.” Grantaire breathes out deeply, trying to focus on slowing his heartbeat. He can feel the frenzy of his pulse under Combeferre’s thumbs on his wrists. “Please. He might be hurt. I need to see him.”

Combeferre closes his eyes. “He’s not hurt, Grantaire,” he says, and when he opens his eyes again, Grantaire thinks they look a little more tired than before. “He’s high.”

* * *

“You didn’t need to come,” says Combeferre, pressing the kitchen door shut behind him and folding his arms, meeting Grantaire’s eye with a raised eyebrow. “I told you I was handling it. I just thought you should know.”

“Bullshit,” spits Grantaire, mimicking Combeferre’s defensive stance. His voice is shaking from the revelation, dimming the effect of his defiance, but he can’t bring himself to give a shit. “As soon as you texted me, you knew I’d come.”

He wishes he didn’t know. He wishes Combeferre hadn’t told him.

He’s glad Enjolras isn’t alone.

Combeferre bites his lip. “Yes. I hoped you would,” he admits, running a hand through his hair and dishevelling it uncharacteristically. It’s odd, seeing Combeferre look anything other than completely composed; his suit is rumpled and his tie is askew, and he looks exhausted. Grantaire wonders if he looks like that too. He hasn’t slept in two days, so he supposes that he can’t look much better.

Combeferre turns away from him and busies himself with fetching two mugs from the cupboards behind him. Grantaire lowers himself numbly into one of the chairs and puts his head in his hands. Enjolras is here. Enjolras is high. Enjolras is in the next room, and he is high. It sounds like nothing and everything, all at once; Grantaire has been high hundreds of times. He spent the entire first year of university in a chemical haze. For him, drugs are nothing but an old crutch. But for Enjolras – well.

When they were both 21, nearing the end of their university courses, Grantaire had stumbled into Enjolras at the Musain. It had been a warm evening; the middle of summer, the end to one of those days that’s cool and balmy in the shade, and stifling and hot everywhere else. Grantaire had just returned from Jehan’s, pleasantly buzzing from the tail end of one of Jehan’s famously heady joints, and he’d been on his way to meet Courfeyrac and Éponine and see in the sunset riding high on the coattails of a synthetic sort of happiness. Enjolras had looked at him, sniffed disapprovingly at the unmistakeable scent that clung to Grantaire’s clothes, to his skin and to his hair, and Grantaire’s heart had plummeted beneath the hazy content of the cannabis, because Enjolras was too real. Enjolras didn’t need to rely on chemicals to make him imbalanced enough to smile. Enjolras didn’t chase the equilibrium of drugs and alcohol, and he had always spoken badly – pityingly, not judgingly, and wasn’t that somehow worse? – of those who did, and now he knew – really knew – that Grantaire was one of those people, one of those people who wasn’t quite whole enough to face a sunset without something to lift him up.

Grantaire had gone home and shed his clothes, the pungent smell still clinging to them, and painted Apollo that night, entirely alone. The canvas had been awash with red.

Combeferre sets down the mugs on the kitchen counter, and Grantaire lifts his head from his hands and watches. Combeferre has always been easy in his own skin, but stoically so, and Grantaire doesn’t need to wonder how he gets on so well with Enjolras. He has a way of anchoring people, Grantaire thinks. He wonders if Combeferre is aware of it.

Staring at the mugs on the counter, Grantaire rubs a hand over his eyes. “What do I do, Combeferre? I don’t know what to do.”

Combeferre clicks the kettle on to boil, and turns to look at Grantaire. “You need to get him some help, Grantaire.”

“He’ll hate me.”

There’s a sound of someone moving in the room next door – feet padding heavily on floorboards, as though someone is getting out of bed – and Grantaire feels his muscles tense. He doesn’t think he can look Enjolras in the eye now, knowing that he might not really be there. He wonders if his eyes are red. Combeferre watches him, and Grantaire is glad that he doesn’t mention it. He couldn’t bear it if Combeferre chose this moment to crow over how right he was.

The sounds of movement halt after a few moments, and Grantaire’s body relaxes, but his mind doesn’t.

“He’ll thank you,” says Combeferre. The kettle clicks, and Combeferre pours the water into the mugs. Grantaire thinks that he doesn’t know Enjolras very well if he really believes what he’s just said. “I’m not saying you should have him committed or put away somewhere,” continues Combeferre, “but – I don’t know, can’t you find out who prescribed him those pills he was taking? You could phone them and arrange an appointment, let them know that he needs something different.”

Grantaire shrugs. “I have no idea who prescribed them, and it’s not like he’d tell me.”

Combeferre pours the milk, and frowns. “You could look on the box, surely?”

“I don’t know where it is. Since I found the first lot, he’s started keeping them somewhere else. Somewhere I can’t find them.” Grantaire finds himself smiling ruefully as he accepts the mug proffered to him by Combeferre. “You know what he’s like. He bought my birthday present four months early, kept it in the flat, and I didn’t even manage to find so much as a clue as to where it was. I could turn that apartment upside down and I still wouldn’t have a hope in Hell of finding it if he didn’t want me to.”

Combeferre stirs his tea thoughtfully. “Well, a different doctor, then,” he suggests, and Grantaire shrugs again. He takes a sip of his tea and grimaces at the heat.

“He wouldn’t go. You know he wouldn’t. Unless I dragged him by his hair, he’d just refuse.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Combeferre muses. “Still, we have to do something.”

“I know,” sighs Grantaire, clasping his hands more tightly around the mug and allowing the warmth to linger on his fingertips. It’s not as comforting as he’d hoped. Not while Enjolras is here and somewhere else. “I just don’t know what.”

Combeferre lifts his mug to his lips. “Well, we’re not going to think of anything tonight,” he says, thoughtful. “Not with him in the next room.” He sets the mug down. “How about you stay the night? I can make the couch up for you, or you could take Courfeyrac’s bed. He’s staying with family this weekend.”

Grantaire shakes his head. He can’t think of anything worse than sleeping here, so close to and yet so far from Enjolras. “No, thank you,” he says. “I should go home and wait for Enjolras there.”

“I think it would be good for him if you were here when he woke up,” Combeferre argues.

Grantaire shrugs. “What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Combeferre asks, frowning. “Do you want to see him?”

“Of course I want to see him, but – ”

“Then stay here.” Combeferre looks at him expectantly. “He’ll probably be confused when he wakes up. It might help him adjust if you’re here. Give him something to anchor him.”

Grantaire doesn’t think that anything can anchor Enjolras when he’s so far adrift that he can’t see the land for the sea.

“Christ, he’s high, not comatose,” he sighs. Combeferre looks as though he’s about to protest, and Grantaire raises his hand, silencing him. “I’ll stay,” he says.

Combeferre smiles at him, slightly sad, and stands up, heading for the door.

“Thank you,” adds Grantaire, and Combeferre nods once, then leaves to make up the couch.

* * *

Grantaire dreams dark things that night. It’s nothing like the dreams he used to have in his drunken stupors, and yet he wakes up with just the same bad taste in his mouth.

* * *

“Combeferre has gone to work,” is the first thing Enjolras says to him when Grantaire stumbles bleary-eyed into the kitchen. “And you didn’t have to stay.”

Enjolras is sitting at the breakfast bar – Combeferre has always insisted on calling it an island, to which Courfeyrac has always loudly protested, because _it’s made of granite, Combeferre, not sand_  – and clasping a mug of what smells like black coffee. His hair is wet, clearly fresh from the shower, and pulled back into a bun, with half-drying tendrils escaping and curling around his ears. He looks so young and entirely incapable of harm that Grantaire could almost believe that he might have imagined the previous evening, were it not for the dark circles under Enjolras’ eyes. He’s wearing one of Combeferre’s oversized university sweaters, sleeves pulled down over his hands, and there’s an open packet of Neurofen next to his mug. Grantaire wonders if his head hurts in more ways than one.

“I wanted to make sure that you were OK,” he responds, meeting Enjolras’ disapproving stare with what he hopes is a steady eye.

Enjolras huffs. “I’m not a child. I can handle it.”

“It would help if I knew what you’d handled.”

“Does it matter?” Enjolras asks, and there’s something dangerous in his voice.

Grantaire doesn’t look away. “It does to me, yes.”

“You’re not my keeper.”

“No, I’m not,” Grantaire agrees. “But I love you, so I’m here. I love you, and you’re not telling me anything.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Grantaire. Really.”

“Nothing at all?” he asks, biting his lip.

Enjolras shakes his head, arms folded. “No.”

And Grantaire wants to say, _how can it be nothing when it’s everything? How can you go out and fill your veins with something false when you’ve always been the only thing that’s real? Did you take a little white pill from the hand of a stranger? Did the music pound and pound until your head throbbed and time stopped still? Did you kiss the people near you who’d made themselves as false as you? Did you fuck them? Did you even think of me?_

But he says, “When we first met, you hated me when I was high. You wouldn’t talk to me. You told Combeferre that you thought I was wasting my life. And now you’re here, and I bet your head is _throbbing_ because you went out and did the thing that you hated me for doing.” He pauses, thinks of all the ways he used to make Enjolras angry before they made each other happy, and rephrases. “One of the things, anyway.”

Enjolras sighs. “It was one time, all right? I just - ” He clears his throat, looks down at his coffee cooling on the counter between his clasped hands, still covered with Combeferre’s sleeves, and meets Grantaire’s eye again. “I wanted to see what it was like. To know how it felt. How you used to feel.”

“And do you know now?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras doesn’t answer.

* * *

He goes out more after that.

The first time after that first time, it’s just after midnight when Enjolras shrugs on Grantaire’s leather jacket, then stands by the front door of their flat, looking impatient. “Well?” he asks. “Are you coming with?”

Grantaire looks up at him from the sofa, where he’s sat with a sketchbook balanced across his knees. He’s in his pyjamas. He’s just brushed his teeth. “Coming where?” he asks.

“Out,” Enjolras sighs.

“It’s nearly 1 in the morning,” says Grantaire, slowly pushing the sketchbook off his lap and standing, walking the few steps forward to reach Enjolras. “Everywhere will be closed by now. Why don’t we just go to bed? We can go out tomorrow.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “I know a place,” he says defensively. “It’ll still be open.”

Grantaire wonders if it’s the place where Enjolras went alone and returned a different person, someone so decisively not-Enjolras that Combeferre felt the need to shield Grantaire from the sight.

“Well, we can both go there tomorrow,” Grantaire says. “But honestly, it’s late, Enjolras. You have a meeting with Bahorel’s security guys tomorrow. Let’s just go to bed.”

He doesn’t say _don’t go out, please, stay here where I know you’re safe – or as safe as I can keep you_ , but it’s a close thing.

A few seconds pass, and then Enjolras rolls his eyes. “I’m going out, even if you’re not,” he says. “I have my key. Don’t wait up.”

He slams the door behind him, and Grantaire feels about as small as he’s ever felt. Smaller than all those nights he spent as a teenager asleep in the doorways of local bars. Smaller than the last time he saw his parents, turning away from him in a little town near the Spanish border. Smaller, even, than the first time he saw Enjolras, alone in a crowd and yet so much a part of it, and thought _I could never_.

He wishes that he had a drink. He wishes that he could lay his hands on Enjolras and stop him from leaving. He wishes that he hadn’t been so quick to welcome in this New Year. It’s done nothing for him at all.

He waits up all the same.

When Enjolras gets back, he’s wide-eyed and silent, half smiling and half crying, something terrified and terrifying all at once about him, shivering as he is in their cold flat. His hair is loose, wild around his pale face. He’s not wearing Grantaire’s jacket any more.

Grantaire walks through to the bedroom, where Enjolras has strode right through without even looking at Grantaire, and places a hand across Enjolras’ forehead. “You’re burning up,” he says, because he can’t say _it feels like you’re on fire and something’s burning through you and I can’t put it out_.

“I’m freezing,” Enjolras replies, shifting on the mattress so that he’s a little closer to Grantaire, who flinches. “I lost your jacket. Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” says Grantaire, fiddling with the bed sheets, even though that jacket had cost him an entire pay cheque and he’d worn it so much that the sleeves had grown soft and creased at the elbow. “You’re here. You’re OK.”

He’s telling himself as much as he’s telling Enjolras, he knows.

Enjolras frowns at him. “I told you not to wait up,” he says.

“But I did anyway,” says Grantaire.

Enjolras peers at him strangely, eyes red-hued and narrowed, before grinning. “You did!” he says. “You always do.” He blinks, then wets his chapped lips to speak. “I love you.”

It’s like the third act of a play, thinks Grantaire. These words are familiar. He’s heard them before, hundreds of times; before meetings, between sheets, after arguments. The same words, from the same lips, formed on the same tongue. But this is not Enjolras. This is something in his veins, his brain, his being. It’s like a parody, and Grantaire suddenly wants to be sick.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he says, turning around and plumping up the pillows on his side of the bed, and if Enjolras notices that this is the first time that Grantaire hasn’t said _I love you_ in return, he doesn’t say anything.

* * *

There are four more times after that, and after that, when Enjolras says _don’t wait up_ , Grantaire doesn’t.

* * *

Combeferre says, “we need to get him some help, Grantaire. My god, have you seen him?” He runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head slowly and exhaling, leaning against the counter, shoulders sagging. “It’s like he’s sand and he’s running through our fingers. We’re running out of time. If he won’t see a doctor, then we’ll have to drag him.”

Grantaire, waiting in Combeferre’s kitchen for the third time that week while Enjolras sleeps off a comedown in the next room, imagines taking Enjolras by the arm, fingers digging into soft flesh, nails leaving little pink crescent moons. He thinks about pulling Enjolras through the flat, through the streets, through Paris – through the whole fucking world if he has to, only for Enjolras to look at him with that new, glassy stare of his.

It is interminable.

Heat builds in his bones. His muscles thrum. Enjolras is in the next room – or at least, his body is. He can feel it all accreting in his skin, vibrating beneath the surface, and suddenly he has to let it out, because this is not fair. _This is not fair_.

His glass smashes to the floor. Water runs between the cracks in the tiles, turning the grout dark grey. The base of the glass, still largely whole, spins on one corner and tilts and wobbles to a stop, surrounded by fragments.

Grantaire’s fingers are still shaking when Combeferre has finished cleaning it up.

* * *

Halfway through his shift at the Corinth, Éponine beckons him over from behind the bar. He frowns, abandoning the table that he’s wiping down, and heads over.

She gives him a consolatory grin. “Just thought I’d have a chat before we hit the post-lunchtime drunkard rush,” she explains. “How are you doing? It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I’ve only taken one day off this week,” Grantaire points out defensively, and Éponine holds her hands up.

“I know, I know,” she says. “It just – it doesn’t feel like I’ve _seen_ you. You know?”

He deflates a little. “I’m sorry, Ép,” he says. “I don’t mean to be on the defensive all the time. Not with you.”

She leans back, pressing her weight onto the bar, and purses her lips. “But with someone else?” He says nothing. “With Enjolras?” she presses.

Grantaire rubs his nose with the heel of his palm. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Maybe.”

“Whoa, I was just kidding,” she says, furrowing her brow. She leans forward and touches him on the forearm. “Are you OK? Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m such an asshole. You told me before – I mean, is he OK? Are you?”

The tap behind her left hip is a new craft beer that they’ve ordered in from England. Grantaire hasn’t tasted it. God, he wants to taste it. He thinks back to the last drink he had – it was with Jehan, he thinks, and now he realises that he has to call Jehan back – and he _aches_. He wants.

“I’m OK,” he says.

Éponine frowns, and doesn’t say anything when he pours himself a glass after his shift.

* * *

Enjolras shows up to a meeting in the same clothes he's been wearing all week, and Combeferre purses his lips. He takes Grantaire aside on the pretext of buying him a drink, and honestly, Grantaire would much rather have the drink. 

"You let him wear the same clothes?" Combeferre hisses. 

"What was I supposed to do?" Grantaire asks. "I can't force clean clothes on him!"

"Well, did you tell him?"

Grantaire folds his arms. "Tell him what? 'Your clothes reek, and everyone's noticed'? Bizarrely enough, no. No, I didn't." Combeferre raises an eyebrow, and Grantaire bites his tongue. "I guess this is all my fault, then."

"Don't make this about you," says Combeferre, sighing, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "My mother - "

"I don't care about your fucking mother, Combeferre," says Grantaire, and he buys himself a drink.

* * *

It has been over a month when Enjolras creeps in without his shoes, and Grantaire snaps. He can’t take any more of this. Of Combeferre’s pity, and his impatience with Grantaire for wanting to wait and see if Enjolras can come through this with his dignity intact. Of their friends wondering where Enjolras is, because he’s missed two meetings in the past fortnight and _there’s a stomach bug going round, you know, does Enjolras need them to bring him some soup_? Of Enjolras’ unfocused stare, of the space between them in the sheets where they lie, curled up like two outward facing commas, of Enjolras’ PhD supervisor phoning Grantaire to ask if he knows when Enjolras’ promised third chapter might materialise and if he’s aware that his doctoral funding is contingent on his actually submitting work from time to time.

Most of all, of watching Enjolras leave and wondering which parts of him will come back, if at all.

“First thing tomorrow, I’m making you an appointment,” he manages to say, as he sits Enjolras down on the sofa and takes his left foot in his hands, examining it for damage. The sole of Enjolras’ foot is cut almost to ribbons, and it’s dirty. Grantaire can see gravel and filth peeking out from where some of the skin has been rubbed away by the pavements of Paris, and he wishes momentarily that Paris could be kinder; that she could see how much they were hurting and carry Enjolras home without injury.

He lowers Enjolras’ foot gently onto the carpet of their flat, and goes to fetch the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. When he gets back into the living room, Enjolras is sitting on his hands, staring flatly at the carpet.

“I’d like that,” he says, voice soft and scared, and Grantaire feels something break just as he feels something mend.

And it makes an awful kind of sense, really, that this version of Enjolras needs – craves – help, because the ordinary and real Enjolras would never ask for it. It fits that this mirror image should need Grantaire in all the ways that the authentic Enjolras doesn’t.

How much does Enjolras know about himself, Grantaire wonders? Is he aware of all the ways he’s not himself, or has he lost the part that realises? Something of it must remain for him to want to see a doctor, he rationalises. Enjolras is not gone. Enjolras is still here. He wants help.

Buoyed by the knowledge that tomorrow is a new day, he lifts Enjolras’ foot as delicately as he can and places it in his lap, cradling his ankle in his left hand and opening the first aid kit with his right, taking out the antiseptic. Enjolras winces, and Grantaire rubs what he hopes are reassuring circles into Enjolras’ skin.

“I’m sorry, love, but this is going to hurt,” he says.

“It already does,” says Enjolras.

* * *

"Do you know why Jehan is texting me and asking about you?" asks Éponine, her foot in the door. 

Grantaire shakes his head. "No." He gestures at her foot. "Can I close my door now?"

"No," says Éponine. "Not until you tell me what's going on." She cranes her neck a little, peering past Grantaire's shoulder, and pulls a face. "Your flat's a fucking shithole, Grantaire. When was the last time you cleaned up?"

 _Months_ , thinks Grantaire. "Last week," he says. "I have to make dinner now. I'll see you tomorrow at work."

He tries to move her foot, but she isn't budging. 

"Jehan says that you're ignoring them," she continues. "Weird, because you were all pumped for your little art project a few months ago, and now it's like you can't bear to be in the same room as them. What gives?"

"Oh my god," says Grantaire, resting his forehead against the door. "Nothing gives, all right? I've been too busy to work on any of the stuff, and I feel bad about jerking Jehan around, so I've been avoiding them. Classic Virgo avoidance technique. That's all." 

"Yeah, OK," huffs Éponine, but she moves her foot at last. She looks slightly mollified, if worried. "Avoidance. You got that right. I'll see you tomorrow, if you don't decide to avoid work again."

She turns around, and then immediately turns back. "Oh, and if you see your boyfriend around, could you tell him that I don't appreciate him making you act like this? I don't know what he's done, but take my advice: stop letting him do it." 

With that, she's gone, and Grantaire closes the door more firmly than necessary.

* * *

“I’m scared,” says Enjolras, knees jiggling and making the feet of the plastic chair clink over and over again against the linoleum.

Grantaire leans over and places a hand on Enjolras’ legs, stilling them. “I know,” he offers. “But if it’s any consolation, I think it’s pretty fucking amazing that you’re here.”

Enjolras doesn’t meet his eye. “Yeah,” he says.

“It _is_ ,” Grantaire presses. “You know how long it took me to turn up to an appointment back when I was sleeping on park benches every other night?” Enjolras shakes his head. “A lot longer than this,” Grantaire finishes.

Across the room, on the other wall, there’s a large painting hung precariously above the vacant receptionists’ desk. It’s supposed to be some kind of tranquil river scene, Grantaire supposes, but it looks more like a bruise, all blues and purples and yellow-tinged. It’s not the most fitting artwork for a doctors’ waiting room.

“I hate having to be here,” Enjolras says suddenly, quietly.

“I know.”

“And I’m sorry.”

Grantaire frowns. “What for?”

“For having to be here,” says Enjolras, looking up at him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“You don’t have to apologise for that,” says Grantaire, still frowning. “For losing my favourite jacket, maybe, but not for being here. I’m proud of you for that.”

"I wouldn't be here if you hadn't made the appointment," Enjolras mutters, and then looks at his hands, inspecting them like they're the most interesting thing he's ever seen. 

Grantaire places his hands over Enjolras'. "You would," he says. "Maybe not today, but eventually - you would."

And they don't talk about why Enjolras is here, that he's not waiting to get a broken arm fixed or to get his shots, but that he's here because his entire self has swayed and tipped over the edge. 

"I mean it," says Grantaire after Enjolras' name has been called. "You don't have to be sorry."

Enjolras doesn’t look like he entirely believes it, but he smiles all the same, and heads for the consulting room.

Neither of them is smiling when, twenty minutes later, Enjolras walks back into the waiting room with a pamphlet in his hand.  

Rising to meet him, Grantaire crosses the waiting area in about four strides. He places his hand on Enjolras’ waist, and Enjolras looks at him quizzically, clutching the pamphlet hard.

“Wait here,” Grantaire whispers into his ear, before accosting the red-haired doctor who’d followed Enjolras out of the consulting room.

The doctor looks at him, one eyebrow cocked. “Can I help you?” she asks

“Yes.” He can feel the same rage that filled him in Combeferre’s kitchen, flooding through him and making him bristle. “I’m Enjolras’ partner, and I’d like to ask you what the _fuck_.”

To her credit, she doesn’t even flinch at his language. Instead, she holds out her hand for him to shake, and he doesn’t take it. “I can’t discuss his treatment with you,” she says, letting her hand fall limp by her side and sounding almost apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

From behind, he can hear Enjolras crumpling the pamphlet, and it steels something in him.

“I know you can’t discuss his treatment or whatever,” he says, “but a fucking _pamphlet_? Is that it?”

“I really can’t – ”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Fine. Do we get a follow-up appointment, or what?”

“You can make another one if it becomes necessary, yes.”

He narrows his eyes, and she presses her lips together. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but it seems to me like you just told me that he has no follow-up appointment.”

“I can’t discuss this with you,” she says, firm. “But I can tell you that the pamphlet is specifically designed for people with – for people in his situation. It has all the relevant information – ”

“Bullshit,” hisses Grantaire. He can hear Enjolras muttering to him, asking him if they can go home, but he needs to do this. He needs to, because he made this appointment himself last week over the phone, with Enjolras’ head on his lap and his hands carding through his hair, and Enjolras had thanked him so earnestly and with such relief – and he’s being sent home with a fucking _pamphlet_. “You have to do something! You can’t just let him walk out of here!” he says, and he thinks about Enjolras walking in through the door with no shoes, about Enjolras building a barricade out of kitchenware, about Enjolras staying up all night working and working all day too.

Perhaps seeing something in his desperate expression, the doctor relents. “Look,” she says. “We don’t have a choice. The system is – well, to be honest with you, it’s shit. It’s really shit. I wish I could do more for you both, I really do. But he’s been assessed, and he’s fit to leave. What I _can_ do is strongly recommend that you make an appointment with a psychotherapist here at the clinic in two weeks, and I can give you the name and number to call, but beyond that, my hands are tied. But you came here today, and honestly, that’s the biggest step. It’s progress.” Grantaire huffs. “I know it doesn’t feel like it,” she adds, “but it is.”

Enjolras wraps his hand around the crook of Grantaire’s elbow. “Please,” he says, voice small and keening. “I just want to go home, Grantaire. I’m exhausted.”

Grantaire looks at the doctor, who’s watching the two of them, probably taking in the faint sheen on Enjolras’ brow and the fact that Grantaire clearly hasn’t washed his hair in a few days. Relenting, she digs into the inside pocket of her jacket and takes out a pen and a scrap of paper, writing down a number and handing it to Grantaire, who doesn’t take it. “Make an appointment,” she urges. “They can do more for you than we can.”

Enjolras reaches out and takes the number. “Thank you,” he says pointedly, all the while attempting to drag Grantaire away, and Grantaire nods at her. She nods in return, eyes lingering on Enjolras for just a second or two, then turns away.

Enjolras sleeps all afternoon, and Grantaire lies next to him, looking. He looks the same in sleep as he always did. It’s only when he’s awake that the differences appear in the set of his jaw, the line of his sight, the ease of his posture. If he could, Grantaire thinks, he would let Enjolras sleep forever. Having nothing is almost better than having something that he can’t begin to understand.

When Enjolras wakes up, Grantaire has 5 missed calls from Jehan and 4 from Combeferre.

He keeps his phone switched off after that.

* * *

“We shouldn’t be meeting here like this,” says Marius, looking down glumly at his glass. “Not without Enjolras.”

They’re sitting in a circle at the Musain, at their usual table on the upper floor, all of them in a circle, chairs pushed too close together so that they can all fit without the need for dragging a second table over. Grantaire stares idly at the empty glass in front of Marius. God, he wants a drink. He can’t tell what was in that glass, but he’d bet that it was cider. Marius seldom drinks anything else. It’s probably cider. It has to be.

He thinks about the time he stole Marius’ drink and nearly gagged at the sweetness of the artificial blackberries, and everybody had laughed and called him old fashioned. He thinks about the time he persuaded Marius to drink neat vodka, and Marius had been sick from the taste before the alcohol content. He doesn’t think about Enjolras. He doesn’t think about how cold and wild his eyes are after he comes home, or what’s running through his veins.

He shudders, and next to him, Jehan purses their lips and rubs Grantaire’s elbow. The touch is anything but reassuring; their fingertips are ink-stained and it only serves to remind Grantaire of where he could be if his life hadn’t been changed by a box of pills. He shrugs himself free of Jehan’s touch, and Jehan looks at him, hurt. Grantaire looks away. Jehan is not Enjolras. Let them be hurt.

“The suburbs campaign continues, Marius, whether Enjolras is here or not,” returns Combeferre coolly, setting down his papers and regarding them all with what Grantaire can tell he hopes is a stern look, even though Grantaire knows that he is hurting. He wonders if Combeferre is hurting in the same way that Grantaire is; if the image of a few hours ago is still lingering somewhere beneath the surface of his skin. Grantaire thinks that he himself is wearing it like a tattoo. Combeferre sweeps his glare around the room, and straightens. “Enjolras wouldn’t want us to stop on his behalf.”

_only –_

_“I’m fine! I’m brilliant – why can’t you see it? I haven’t felt this good in weeks. Years, even!”_

_and then –_

_“Why are you looking at me? Stop looking at me. Please. I can’t – I can’t deal with you looking at me. Not like that.”_

_and –_

_“I don’t want you here! Get out. Get the_ fuck _out – get off me!”_

_and –_

_the blood, and the stitches, and the silence on the way home, and Grantaire crying, actually_ crying _into Combeferre’s fucking corduroy lapels, and Enjolras saying over and over, “I didn’t mean it, it was an accident – I have my appointment tomorrow, it’ll all be all right then, won’t it, Grantaire?”_

_and –_

_“You know I didn’t mean to, don’t you?”_

_and –_

_“I don’t, no.”_

Courfeyrac snorts. “Right,” he says. “The campaigns."

From across the table, Combeferre clears his throat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We’re not here to talk about the campaigns, and you know it," says Courfeyrac, mouth set in a grim line. "We all know it.”

Grantaire feels a little cold spark of something like fear in his chest. He feels sick. “What do you know?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. He knows that he sounds anything but calm.

“We know Enjolras isn’t well,” answers Joly.

Grantaire tries not to let his panic show. He meets Combeferre’s eye, who shrugs, looking just as anxious as Grantaire feels. “You don’t know anything about it,” says Grantaire eventually.

He notices Cosette and Marius exchange worried glances, sees Courfeyrac’s hand on Jehan’s knee, watches fucking _Bahorel_ looking back at him with tender concern in his eyes, and he wants to vomit.

“Let us help, Grantaire,” says Jehan. Jehan, who Grantaire is supposed to be doing an art project with, but hasn’t called back in weeks. Jehan, whose fucking green ribbon set Enjolras ablaze. Jehan, who has Courfeyrac, when Grantaire doesn’t know what he has any more.

“Fuck you all for doing this behind my back,” Grantaire bites, and leaves.

When he gets home, 7 missed calls and 6 voicemails racked up on his phone, Enjolras is not there.

He hasn’t been home for a long time, thinks Grantaire, and he suddenly just _wants_ and _misses_ and _hates_ , a thousand different things; he wants and hates and misses Enjolras, and the way they would spend their weekends at museums, laughing at bad art and sending photos of Grantaire mimicking sculptures on Snapchat. He wants Enjolras back. He misses knowing him. He hates him, most of all; for leaving, for letting this happen to him, for walking through the streets barefoot, for making Grantaire feel so fucking _lonely_ even when he’s lying next to him, awake and terrified, waiting for Enjolras to get up and go out and return with his pupils blown wide and ink from some shitty club stamped like a brand on the back of his hand.

He slumps down onto the carpet, spine pressed against the front door uncomfortably, and thinks back to the time Enjolras couldn’t get out of bed, all those months ago. How it had seemed, then, like the world was ending – all because Enjolras stayed in bed for a day. How it had taken that, and only that, for the entire planet to tilt on its axis. How Grantaire would give almost anything now for Enjolras to stay in bed for one day. How he misses what was once terrible and unthinkable. How terrible and unthinkable it all is now.

He’s not sure why he answers Combeferre this time; only that he does.

“What do you want?” he asks him by way of greeting. “He’s not here.”

“You need to come over. Right now.” Combeferre’s voice is low and understanding and urgent, and immediately Grantaire knows that something terrible has happened; something infinitely more terrible than Enjolras being high, or asleep, or even hurt.

“Not this time,” says Grantaire. His heartbeat is beginning to race. “This time, you tell me what I’m letting myself in for. What’s happened?”

“Oh, Grantaire,” says Combeferre on an exhale, voice shaky. “He’s here. Enjolras is here.”

“OK,” sighs Grantaire, standing up and reaching over for his hoodie, which is hanging on the back of the door. “I’ll be over in ten.”

“You need – ” Combeferre begins, then stops. Grantaire hears him take another faltering breath, and he feels his pulse quicken almost immeasurably. He doesn’t know how much more his body will take.

“Tell me,” he says, hoping that he sounds more authoritative than he feels. “Whatever it is. I can take it.”

He’s not sure that he can, of course, but Enjolras needs him. He has to at least try.

“I hate this,” whispers Combeferre, and he sounds absolutely wrecked, like he’s having to wrench the words right from within. “God. OK. Grantaire, he’s here, but he’s not on his own.”

For a moment, everything seems to teeter. Grantaire feels dizzy, and he finds himself on the carpet again, spine once more digging into the white wood of the front door, but he can’t remember sitting down.

“What do you mean, he’s not on his own?” he asks slowly.

“I mean that he’s brought someone back, Grantaire. I am so, so sorry,” says Combeferre, and Grantaire can hear that his voice is thick with sadness. “I don’t think he knows – he seems really out of it, but there’s someone else here, and I – I hate to have to tell you this, Grantaire. Don’t make me tell you this.”

Grantaire doesn’t. He hangs up. His phone makes a soft thud as it falls to the carpet.

Enjolras is not alone. Enjolras has brought someone back. Enjolras is not alone.

But Grantaire is alone, isn’t he?

And the silence in the flat is too much; the empty space at the end of the sofa, where Enjolras usually toes off and leaves his slippers before heading out for the day, is too much; the pile of unfinished marking on the table is too much; the almost imperceptible smear of blood on the door handle is too much.

Because Enjolras is not alone. Grantaire has watched him stay in bed, build barricades out of kitchenware, and walk barefoot through the streets of Paris with pills under his tongue, and he is alone.

“I’ll be over in ten,” says Grantaire again, voice thick, and he is numb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two and a half years between chapters might be a record. Luckily, the rest of this is planned out. It may not be another two and a half before chapter 3.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh, I feel as though a disclaimer is necessary here. This story is partly written using my own experiences of mental illness. Most of the symptoms described are symptoms that I have personally experienced, although the events are of course fictional. I am not a pyschologist and nor do I claim to be an expert on mental health, but I do have a lot of experience with the topic. Having said that, all experiences are subjective, and if anything here seems totally inaccurate, I can only apologise; I wrote this largely as catharsis.  
> My main motive behind writing the story was a conversation I had with someone, in which they told me 'you don't seem like the kind of person who'd get depressed'. I started thinking about how mental illness can affect anyone, even people who seem so strong as to never break, and it doesn't make a difference how clever or motivated you are; if your brain chemistry falters, then you're just as much at risk as anyone else. It doesn't make you a weak person, just as it doesn't only affect weak people; it is an illness, just like any other maladie. I also wanted to show how mental illness affects those close to people who suffer from it, as I lived with someone for years who had depression and it's an angle that people don't often seem to talk about.  
> I have tagged with all the trigger warnings that I think would apply, and will add trigger warnings to the next chapters if they become necessary. I didn't feel as though the themes discussed were triggering enough to merit a warning above a T, but if anyone disagrees, then please feel free to let me know and I will amend it.  
> On a totally unrelated note, I tried very hard to get Jehan's pronouns right, but if I made a mistake anywhere, please let me know.  
> You can either let me know here, or if you'd rather be anonymous, you can find me on my [Tumblr](http://teashoesandhair.tumblr.com).  
> Thanks!


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